Conclusion.

Scientists now predict that by the year 2050 the population will be doubled what is today. The fact remains that the rate of food production fell behind population growth in many of developing countries. The annual fish catch already exceeds what the world ‘s oceans can successfully sustain. If we go on using our natural recourses at today’s rates, we will have used up the intire reserves of cooper, natural gas and oil by the year 2054.

But the problem ahead lie not so much in what we use but in what we waste. What faces us is not so much a recourse crisis as a pollution crisis. The only solution is to try to change the areas of consumption, technology and population. Changes in technology must be baked by slower population growth. And it can be achieved by education in health and women’s rights. And there is a little hope of reducing consumption over the next half century.

Glossary of terms

Catchment area – The area from which a lake, stream or reservoir recives surface flow which originates as precipitation. Also called drainage area, drainage basin, river basin, catchment basin, catchment.

Drainage – The removal of excess water from land by means of surface or subsurface conduits; also a system of such conduits.

Ground water – The water that occurs below the surface of ground in the zone of saturation, from which wells and springs or open channels are fed. The term is sometimes used to indicate also the suspended water and as synonymous with sub-surface water, underground water or sub-terranean water.

Humid – An area or climate having more moisture than is needed for crop growth; artificial drainage is generally essential to get rid of surplus moisture.

Irrigation – The artificial watering of farm land by canals, ditches, flooding, etc., to supply growing crops with moisture.

Irrigable area – Areas within the boundaries of an irrigation system or channel susceptible to irrigation.

Irrigation dugout – Small irrigation channel

Lateral- An irrigator′s channel, taking its supply from an outlet or turnout, from which fields are irrigated either directly or through field ditches.

Network- A system of channels interlasing or crossing like the fabric of a net.

Reclamation- Conversion of poor quality land or other resources to more useful resources by special practices.

Runoff-That portion of earth’s avaible water supply that is transmitted through natural channels.

Seapage-Slow percolation generally associated with flow in an unsaturated medium.

Sprinkler irrigation- A method of irrigation in which water is sprayed into the air and alllowed to fall on the land surface in a uniform pattern. Also known as Spray irrigation.

Subirrigation- A method of irrigation in which water is applied below the surface, as by a system of underground porous pipes.

Surface irrigation-A method of irrigation in which the water either is ponded on the soil or allowed to flow continuously over the soil surface for the duration of the irrigation.

Water table-The maximum height to which water will rise in an auger hole.