Problem Statement
How might we alert water pollution brought by agriculture before causing severe
damages for farmers and local governments, in order to prevent underground
water pollution that can destroy aquatic ecosystems.
Project Proposal Abstract
With the rapid development of agriculture, the overuse of fertilizer to elevate the
productivity of farmlands finally leads to the pollution of underground water as
well as water in nearby lakes and ponds, which not only damage the aquatic
ecosystem but also the terrestrial one as well as the whole human being.
Research shows that the fundamental issue is the ignorance of the
government. Therefore, the prototype we provide is basically an alarm for the
government to notice the water quality problems in specific areas without delay
and start the process of controlling and managing them as soon as possible.
Thus, with the high-tech and local wells we already have, the issue will be solved
in a more inexpensive and efficient way.
Social Issue Research Report
Data Collection
❖ Sixty-five percent of the estuaries and coastal waters in the contiguous
U.S. that have been studied by researchers are moderate to severely
degraded by excessive nutrient inputs. Excessive nutrients lead to algal
blooms and low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters that can kill fish and seagrass
and reduce essential fish habitats. Many of these estuaries also support
bivalve mollusk populations (e.g., oysters, clams, scallops), which naturally
reduce nutrients through their filter-feeding activities.
Oceanservice.noaa.gov
❖ Advanced Science News: Algal Blooms in Streams, Lakes, and Coastal
Waters
by WIREs Authors in Sep 12, 2019:
“Recent examples of eutrophication impacts include toxic algal blooms that
cut off drinking water supplies for nearly 10 million people at eutrophic
Lake Taihu, China, and 650,000 people along the shores of Lake Erie,
USA/Canada. Toxins from a eutrophic reservoir also killed 76 people in
Brazil in 1996 when the filtration system at a kidney dialysis clinic failed.
Conservative estimates of annual costs of eutrophication have indicated $1
billion losses for European coastal waters and $2.4 billion for lakes and
streams in the United States.”
www.advancedsciencenews.com
❖ Based on Kunming Water Resource Bureau, the provincial government is
able to take effective methods which successfully solve water pollution
problem (such as building wetlands and cleaning pollutants deposits),
however, the government is not being alerted soon enough （after 20 years
later than the pollution occur 1998-2018), sp the government now needs at
least 17 years (2018~2035) to deal with the water pollution issues.
shuiwu.km.gov.cn
❖ ‘Fertilizers, a Boon to Agriculture, Pose Growing Threat to U.S. Waterways’
by Tatiana Schlossberg in The New York News:
Farmers and agricultural authorities must take account of climate change
and the prospect of increased rainfall in designing strategies to mitigate the
effects of nutrient pollution. Otherwise, Ms. Michalak said, “They’re going
to fail.”
www.nytimes.com
❖ ‘Eutrophication of lakes will significantly increase greenhouse gas
emissions established in March 26, 2019, in Science News:
Source from the University of Minnesota states that “The greening or
eutrophication of the world's lakes will increase the emission of methane
into the atmosphere by 30 to 90 percent during the next 100 years, say
researchers. This increased methane emission is equivalent to 18-33
percent of annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Limiting lake greening is important to preserve fragile water supplies and to
avoid acceleration of climate change.”
www.sciencedaily.com
Existing Solutions
Existing Solution 1: Drilling wells specifically to test the water
pollution level
Pros:
1) Accurately testing the water quality of underground water in specific areas
Cons:
1) Time-consuming as the government needs time for construction
2) Bring budget pressures to governments as building specific wells to
monitor water. quality all over the farmlands is expensive (Average Cost:
$3,750 – $15,300)
Existing Solution 2: Constructing water pipes to collect wastewater
produce by each farmland
Pros:
1) Control water pollution issues from the original cause
Cons:
1) Affecting agricultural productivity when constructing pipelines
2) Bring budget pressures to governments as constructing pipelines under
every farmland is expensive
3) Low efficiency as the pipelines cannot collect all the wastewater from
farmland
Existing Solution 3: Testing the pollution level of soil above
underground water
Pros:
1) More feasible than directly testing underground water
Cons:
1) Time-consuming as the government needs time for construction
2) Not able to collect data immediately as soil quality test cannot be
conducted every day
3) Indirect as there can be the difference between soil and water quality
Insights and Takeaways
Usually, the government is not alerted or warned before underground water
pollution brought severe impacts to surrounding aquatic ecosystems; If they are,
they will be able to take immediate actions and conducting specific research in
the reported areas.
How has the research led to changes to our problem statement
Our original problem statement focusing on how to limit the amount of
nitrogen and phosphate in wastewater from agriculture, but we find out the
government is able to take action and solve the problem effectively after they are
being informed (e.g. The Yunnan Province Dianchi water pollution treatment), the
issue is that the government is not being alerted early enough before the
wastewater cause severe water pollution. Considering that, we change our
problem statement and focus more on alerting the government before severe
pollution problems occur.
Social Innovation Solution (Diagrams Attached)
OUR METHOD: Alert the governments before water pollution becomes severe
enough to destroy aquatic ecosystems.
HOW DO WE ACHIEVE THAT?
Alert apparatus with two sensors of nitrogen & phosphate combined with a
wireless transmission device
WHY IS THAT USEFUL?
➢ Nitrogen & Phosphate are two main substances that cause water pollution
(eutrophication) that destroy the aquatic ecosystems in surrounding areas,
therefore testing them can help to monitor the water quality of underground
water
➢ The wireless transmission device can send real-time data effectively to the
provincial base station and then to the government
Pros:
1) Can be immediately applied and have a smaller impact on agriculture as
the government only need to fix the device on the wall of the existed wells
(no need for any new drilling)
2) The government is able to receive accurate and real-time data as the
sensors are directly testing the underground water from the wells
3) The device can be quickly mass-produced as all the technologies it
needed are already being invented
Cons:
1) The government still need funds to purchase and produce the device
(although much cheaper(Average cost: $620 )than drilling specific test
wells)
Detailed Implementation Plan(Mindmap and Diagrams Attached)
By using our alert device, the government is able to monitor the water
quality of underground water of each region during each day, so whenever the
underground water of a certain region contains a too high level of nitrogen or
phosphate that might cause pollution issues in the future, they will be able to take
immediate researches and actions to prevent these potential issues. Moreover,
as the government can detect the issue in the early stages, they can solve them
with a lower amount of money and effort compared to the amount they need to
solve much more severe issues in the future. Therefore, our project is
sustainable as it saves a huge amount of money and time, which encourages the
government to continue this project.
There are two stages: Detecting potential issues and Monitoring water
quality after strategies are applied. In the first stage, we expect our device can
help the government to detect potential issues by monitoring the real-time water
quality of underground water. With our device, the government will be able to see
the nitrogen and phosphorus levels of the underground water in each region and
take action immediately to prevent issues if needed. In the second stage, we
expect our device can help the government to see if the actions, policies, and
strategies they applied are effective. Instead of taking water quality checks
regularly, which needs much more money and effort, the government can use the
data collected and sent by our device to see if their strategies can lower the
nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the underground water of each area.
Project Business Model
Based on our research and analysis, our device cost less money than
traditional water quality evaluation methods. The methods, such as drilling test
wells and conduct underground water quality tests, have average costs of $3,750
to $15,300; Our innovative method with the alert device has an average cost of
$620, which is much cheaper than the conventional methods. Therefore, the
government is able to solve the pollution issues more immediately and also
economically efficiently (less cost) than traditional water quality evaluation
methods, which makes our project more sustainable.
Foreseeable challenges & Roadblocks
For limitations and bias assumptions of the alert devices in water to
prevent the pollution of groundwater. First of all, there is probably only one or
even no well in farmland, which would record inaccurate data as the government
cannot receive and monitor the water quality of that region. Moreover, there could
be regions that do not have enough money to drill wells so that the government
can not apply our device there. Thirdly, the wireless transmission device may not
work effectively underwater as water may damage the metal parts of the
transmission device. Therefore, the government may not be able to receive the
data and take action immediately.
For the first two limitations, we could deal with them by communicating and
cooperating with local governments. Thus they are able to apply new
technologies to help these areas to dig or drill wells. For the third limitation, we
can use waterproof materials to cover up the whole wireless transmission device.