Liwanag, Marella Agatha C.

July 25, 2014

ESE 150 C1

Prof. Almenor

Last Wednesday, July 23, 2014, our discussion on our ESE150 class revolved
around the topic of water resources. By definition, water resources are sources of water
that are useful and essential to human beings as well as other life forms such as plants
and animals. As we all know, water is very important for without it, life as we know it
would cease to exist. Uses of water include industrial, agricultural, residential,
household as well as environmental activities. Almost all of these require the use of
fresh water. Of all the water sources on Earth, only three percent contains fresh water
and less than one percent is accessible to humans. Fresh water can be found frozen in
glaciers and polar ice caps while the remaining composed of unfrozen freshwater that is
found mostly as ground water with only a small amount present above ground or in air.

It is said that in the near future, next to global warming, water supply would be a
huge problem. Nowadays, water demand already exceeds the supply of water in many
parts of the world. This idea that was presented to us in our class really bothered me for
water plays a huge part in our day to day existence. Without water, we wouldnt be able
to water the plants, have a drink, take a bath and there is a long list of things that we
could not do. As human beings, we play a vital role in helping conserve water. We
should be responsible enough for we are the ones who mainly use water. If we do not
want future generations to experience water shortage, we should take action now.

Besides knowing about water resources, we also learned about the basics of
conducting a geophysical survey. The purpose of a geophysical survey is to locate the
best source of freshwater. One method used in a geophysical survey is called the
Transient Electromagnetic Method or what is usually known as the TEM. The TEM
maps geological and aquifer condition down to 300 m below ground. I found out that a
lower resistivity can indicate the presence of saltwater while a higher resistivity on the
other hand, indicates the presence of freshwater below ground. This is very important,
especially in our field of Civil engineering since you would be able to pin point the
location of the area that you should dig in order to extract freshwater.