Human activities in distant watersheds influence the potential for contamination of urban drinking water supplies
, but few ever think about where their water originates. For the millions who dwell in urban areas, that water often comes from far away watersheds, land areas that channel rainfall and snowmelt to creeks, streams, and rivers. However, the way humans use land in these watersheds may affect the quality of the water that makes it to the supply system.have found a wide range of potential contamination in the surface drinking water sources of cities across the United States.
“We were looking at utility websites and planning documents for 116 cities to complement a pre-existing dataset — called the Urban Water Blueprint — that defines source watershed locations for all the cities,” said Turner., to link data about human activity on the land surface with simulations of watershed runoff and river flow. This allowed the team to look at potential contamination from both wastewater treatment plants, or point sources, and runoff from developed land, or nonpoint sources.
Des Moines, Iowa, ranks highest of cities potentially exposed to high levels of contamination from nonpoint sources, as almost all the water that enters the water supply in Des Moines has potential nonpoint source contamination. Des Moines relies on two rivers for its water and has limited alternative water sources. The two rivers catch runoff from the croplands surrounding Des Moines, leading to very high potential contamination from nonpoint sources.
Some cities have multiple source watersheds with different levels of potential contamination. Durham, North Carolina, for example, has primary watersheds and a secondary watershed for emergency use only. This secondary watershed has fewer protections and higher levels of potential contamination. “These results highlight the importance of understanding how human activities in source watersheds may lead to a wide range of water quality challenges for U.S. cities,” said
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