Geography: Water and Wastewater Engineering and NPS Pollution

This report delves into the critical issue of managing non-point source pollution (NPS) stemming from agricultural practices, a significant concern within water and wastewater engineering. It explores the impact of agricultural activities on water quality, differentiating between point and non-point sources of pollution, and highlights the regulatory frameworks, such as the Clean Water Act, that address these issues. The report emphasizes the need for effective management strategies, particularly best management practices (BMPs), to mitigate the adverse effects of agricultural runoff. It discusses the importance of understanding the sources of NPS pollution and implementing measures to reduce pollutants. The report also underscores the importance of wastewater engineering and sustainable practices like constructed wetlands in achieving environmental goals. It draws on various academic documents to support its findings and emphasizes the crucial role of wastewater management in minimizing the environmental impacts of agriculture.

Running Head: GEOGRAPHY
0
Geography
Water and Wastewater engineering
(Student details :)
7/20/2019

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Contents
Managing non- point source pollution from agriculture............................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Water and Wastewater Engineering...........................................................................................2
Non-point and Point source Pollution....................................................................................3
Non-point source pollution management from agriculture........................................................4
Best management practices........................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Managing non- point source pollution from agriculture
Introduction
This report is focused on a particular research topic related to water and wastewater
engineering. To do so, ‘managing non-point source pollution from agriculture’ will be
discussed with the help of this discussion. In this context, this research report will assess key
documents including codes, guidance documents, published journal articles, and legislation
documents so that detailed research on wastewater engineering can be conducted. In general,
nonpoint source pollution (NPS) is the pollution is generated by snowmelt or rainfall moving
over as well as through the ground. When the runoff moves, it usually picks up and then
carries away human-made and natural pollutants, while depositing them into rivers, wetlands,
lakes, coastal waters and groundwater (Craig & Roberts, 2015). In this way, this report is
going to discuss how non-point source pollution from agriculture can be managed and
reduced effectively. In this way, a summary of the key findings will be provided in the later
section of the report.
Water and Wastewater Engineering
As we know that almost entire activities of modern societies depend upon the supply of an
adequate amount of safe and clean water. Here, a large amount of water is usually consumed
for the daily life of the society while also for industrial, commercial and agricultural activities
(Canter, 2018). It has been observed that in many situations, consumption of water refers to
the degradation of water quality. In this context, the post being utilized for some specific
purpose, the water gets contaminated with compounds like proteins, lipids, carbohydrates,
metals, microorganisms, and nutrients. In this way, this water is called wastewater because it
is not clean enough for drinking and other necessary use and hence it has to be wasted. As the
quality and quantity of wastewaters from community areas generally surpass the assimilative
capacity of reception natural waters, thus treatment, as well as a collection of wastewaters, is
needed to keep the water sources clean enough. In this context, natural waters’ water quality
standards are established and hence wastewater management is carried out for achieving such
water quality standards. In this way, for sustaining natural waters as safe as possible
wastewater management is critically required (United Nations, 2018).

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Apart from this, wastewater management is directly related to water pollution issue which has
been raised since the beginning of erection of the human societies or high population density.
Water pollution control necessitates better wastewater engineering techniques in various
areas. For instance, the collection, as well as treatment schemes of wastewater, is required for
effective wastewater management. Here, wastewater can be defined as industrial wastewater,
municipal wastewater, rainfall wastewater and wastewater generated from snowmelt (YEN &
Gracia, 2018).
Non-point and Point source Pollution
In this context, NPS pollution is typically caused whenever there is rainfall or snowmelt,
running over as well as through the ground, carries natural and human-made pollutants by
picking, depositing them up into different waters resources (Kleinman et al., 2015).
In addition to that, point sources of pollution often release pollutants through discrete
conveyances, like a discharge pipe. PS is regulated from state and federal agencies
worldwide. Apart from this, the major point source dischargers include factories and sewage
treatment plants that release cured wastewater (Kilkis, 2016).
On the other hand, NPS is a combination of several pollutants belongs to a huge area rather
than through specific recognizable sources like discharge pipes (Esposto,
2009). Additionally, runoff is typically connected with NPS, as water is collapsed into rivers
or streams post accumulating pollutants by sources such as parking lots, gardens, or
construction sites. In addition to that, the federal Clean Water Act needs states for identifying
a total maximum daily load (referred as TMDL) for every pollutant which is the collective
amount of pollution throughout point and non-point sources which the state considers a water
body should admit without surpassing the water quality standards (Sustainable develoment
Goals, 2018).

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Source: (Nebrini, 2013)
Non-point source pollution management from agriculture
In this context, agriculture is trending as an increasingly complex industry, which can be used
for managing NPS at large extent. Thus, agriculture field is currently is mainly exempt from
regulation under the Clean Water Act. It means that the rest methods of NPS pollution control
are a must (Canter, 2018).
For instance, in the year 2014 U.S. Department of Agriculture Organic Survey found that
51,000 acres of land were converted to organic production ever since 2008. In other words,
when organic production is not considered as NPS pollution control, it does replicate
individual as well as community values and issues for environmental quality. Irrespective of
such positive advances, rest techniques to NPS pollution control are necessary. Here, the
USEPA found agricultural NPSP being the main source of the lake and stream contamination
averting accomplishment of the water quality goals found within the Clean Water Act
(Strehmel et al., 2016).
It has been observed that NPS fields of focus are motivated through specific land uses. As it
is declared in Under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act, territories, states, and tribes must
find categories of resources of NPS pollution being part of an assessment report needed in
order to obtain a grant (Craig & Roberts, 2015). Apart from this, the United States owns

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above 330 million acres of row crop agricultural land which generate a huge supply of food
as well as other eatable products. Therefore, American agriculture is considered for its high
quality, productivity, and efficiency while delivering quality products to global consumers.
However, if these are improperly managed, then it may affect local as well as far-field water
quality (Craig & Roberts, 2015).
The NWQA depicts that agricultural NPS pollution is the topmost source of water quality
effects over surveyed streams and rivers, the 3rd biggest resource for global lakes, and the 2nd
biggest source of damages to wetlands. Besides, agriculture NPS pollution is the main
contributor to the contamination of measured ground and estuaries water (Babin et al., 2016).
On the other hand, agricultural activities which cause NPS pollution generally occur in the
absenteeism of a preservation plan. In this way, it can be said that impacts can be produced
through activities like poorly managed or located animal feeding manure and
operations, overgrazing too often or sometimes at the incorrect time along with an
improper application fertilizer (DeFries & Nagendra, 2017).
Best management practices
Many policy instruments are suggesting that well-known ideologies for decreasing pollution,
like polluter, pay, are difficult to apply within the practice of agricultural NPS. This is
because it is identifying that actual polluters are neither easy nor cheap. By using particular
areas as sinks for water pollutants running off agricultural fields NPS can be reduced at a
large level (Austin & Yu, 2016). Such sinks should be able of interrupting the water
pollutants in either groundwater flows or surface water runoffs. Apart from this, they must
support effective procedures to remove water pollutants. In this way, from applying nonpoint
source pollutant attenuation mechanisms, this NPS can be managed effectively. Some best
management practices for agriculture NPS are as follows:
 Sediment Trapping
 Plant Uptake: (Seasonal Dynamics and Temporal Dynamics)
 Microbial Processes
 Adsorption (Brunner & Rechberger, 2015).

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Conclusion
In whole, this report has successfully found the significance of wastewater engineering in the
context of managing non-point source pollution from agriculture in this modern era. It has
been observed that constructed wetlands, as well as sustainable development, are strongly
inter-related from the global sustainable future viewpoint. While discussing agriculture NPS,
the report has discussed the major differences amid point source as well as non-point source
pollution in the context of wastewater management. Apart from this, this report has found
that wastewater has become essential from various perspectives and sustainability is one of
them. In a nutshell, the report has covered several wastewater management practices in order
to minimize the NPS from agriculture. In this way, with the help of several important
academic documents, this discussion has identified various important ways to reduce NPS
from agriculture within the modern age.

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References
Babin, N., Mullendore, N.D. & Prokopy, L., 2016. Using social criteria to select watersheds
for non-point source agricultural pollution abatement projects. Land Use POlicy, 55, pp.327-
33.
Brunner, P.H. & Rechberger, H., 2015. Waste to energy–key element for sustainable waste
management. Waste Management, 37, pp.3-12.
Canter, L.W., 2018. Environmental impact of agricultural production activities. USA: CRC
Press.
Craig, R. & Roberts, A., 2015. When will governments regulate nonpoint source pollution: a
comparative perspective. BC Envtl.Aff.L.REv., 42(1).
DeFries, R. & Nagendra, H., 2017. Ecosystem management as a wicked problem. Science,
356(6335), pp.265-70.
Esposto, S., 2009. Sustainability applied to the design of water treatment plants in Iraq.
Sustainability Science, 4(2), pp.293-300.
Kilkis, S., 2016. Sustainable development of energy, water and environment systems index
for Southeast European cities. Journal of cleaner production, 130, pp.222-34.
Kleinman, P. et al., 2015. Implementing agricultural phosphorus science and management to
combat eutrophication. Ambio, 44(2), pp.297-310.
Nebrini, P., 2013. Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, and Habitat in Prisons. Geneva: International
Committee of the Red Cross.
Strehmel, A., Schmalz, b. & Fohrer, N., 2016. Evaluation of land use, land management and
soil conservation strategies to reduce non-point source pollution loads in the three gorges
region, China. Environmental management, 58(5), pp.906-21.
Sustainable develoment Goals, 2018. Goal 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all.
[Online] Available at: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/water-and-sanitation/
[Accessed 14 December 2018].

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United Nations, 2018. Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and
sanitation for all. [Online] Available at:
http://gh.one.un.org/content/unct/ghana/en/home/global-agenda-in-ghana/sustainable-
development-goals/SDG-6-clean-water-and-sanitation.html [Accessed 10 January 2019].
YEN & Gracia, Z., 2018. Water Borne diseases: types and causes. [Online] Available at:
https://yen.com.gh/116168-water-borne-diseases-types-causes.html#116168 [Accessed 14
December 2018].