Conservation

of water at home Water is vital to humans and the environment as it is needed to sustain our daily lives. Water is needed as it is used for many purposes such as drinking cooking, washing and watering the plants however as time passes we never fail to hear that certain parts of the world are facing water crisis. In fact a good example would be how our community within the Ampang region faced water shortage on January 7,2013 which caused difficulties to residents living around Ampang. According to news source the water shortage was due to a faulty water pump operated by Syabas, Selangor. Uses of Water As we all know, water is our most precious resource. All living things wouldnt be able to survive without water. Water has a vast use hence we must ensure that the water supply that we get is unpolluted and is always clean to use. Water can be used for building constructions, generation of steam for industrial use and electricity generation, generating hydroelectricity, for irrigation purposes , as a solvent and for growth of crops. Sources of water Nearly of the earths surface is covered with water. Also 70% of human body is made up of water. The two main sources of water is ground water, which is water that lies under the surface of the land. This happens when rain falls and the water sinks down to the ground. The other source would be surface water, which is the most common source that is used by people. Water can be obtained from many sources such as ocean, rivers, lakes, streams, ponds and rainwater. Data processing and evaluation I worked on the conservation of water for my yearlong project. The aim of this project was to look for methods to reduce usage of water at home. My family and I tried several ways and I personally think it was a success as the data I have collected over the past few months showed reduction in the usage of water in

our home. My family and I have been keeping a record of the water consumption since August 2012 till March 2013. Months after Cubic meters of August water 0 22 1 21 2 17 3 16 4 15 5 18 6 19 7 17 Table 1: usage of water from august 2012 to march 2013 in cubic meters and percentage increase or decrease Based on table 1, we can see that there was decrease in the usage of water from August 2012 to December 2012. However, our water usage since January 2013 till March 2013 is almost in the same region.

Monthly use of water

C u b i c m e t e r s o f w a t e r 24 22 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Months after August

Cubic meters of water

Line Graph 1
Y intercept = 20 Ordered pairs( 0,20) (6,19) (20-19)/(0-6)=-1/6 y=-1/6x+20 10=-1/6x+20 -6(-10)=-6/1(-1/6x) 60=x (months after August) Formula October 2012 Conserving water

We managed to save water during the first few months as we practiced several ways of conserving water such as we reduced shower time to 5minutes instead of taking longer time. For gardening we used rainwater for the plants. Also when it comes to do the laundry we make sure that we only do it when there is a full load. The washing machine is always on save mode. The reason why the water usage increased in January,2013 is because we had guests coming over to live in our home and now there were more people instead of just four of us. However, we still aim to conserve water and these are some ways that can be done, For instance repairing leaky faucet tap if necessary, turning the water while brushing teeth, checking for toilet leakage every now and then by using dye tablet in the flush tank and watched to see if the dye seeps into the bowl. Lastly we got to educate the housemaid to reduce the water consumption by turning off the tap at kitchen sink while washing off utensils and only turning on the tap when needed.