All posts by asad ilyas

Bioswales

December 2, 2016 asad ilyas Leave a comment

Bioswales are long channeled depression or trench that receives rainwater runoff from solid impervious surfaces and have vegetation and organic matter to slow water infiltration during rain storms. Planted with vegetation suited to boggy conditions, the bioswales act like miniature wetlands that filter out and biodegrade the toxins contained in the runoff.

Bioswales are designed to manage a specified amount of runoff from a large impervious area, such as a parking lot or roadway. Because they need to accommodate greater quantities of stormwater, they often require use of engineered soils. They are also linear systems that are greater in length than width and are vegetated with plants that can withstand both heavy watering and drought. The effectiveness of bioswales increases with increased contact time between soil and stormwater, and increased vegetative cover.

This is all best achieved by using soils that can adequately slow down, infiltrate, and retain water, as well as support plant life. In areas where nutrients are a concern to water quality, soils capable of retaining high amounts of phosphorus or nitrogen should be selected, along with plants that use nutrients very efficiently. Bioswales are a type of green infrastructure that helps clear the soil contaminants as well as the rain water contaminants ultimately improving the groundwater quality.

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Benefits of Green Roofs

November 4, 2016 asad ilyas Leave a comment

In this age of technology, we have changed our living habits. Urbanization has taken over previously rural areas and industries have been depleting natural vegetation and forest thereby increasing pollution and ultimately reducing air quality. Many environmentalists and scientists have been trying to come up with ways to reduce these detrimental effects.

One such method is to make green roofs which is a type of green infrastructure. A green roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems. The number of layers may vary depending on the reason they are installed.

Green roofs serve several purposes for a building but the major ones include, the absorption of rainwater, providing insulation, providing an aesthetically pleasing landscape, lower urban air temperatures and mitigate the heat island effect.

The most important of all these functions is to reduce storm water overflow i.e. when there are heavy storms the city sewage treatment plant could not treat all of the waste so it overflows. This overflow cause water pollution when it is released into the ocean which is detrimental to oceanic ecosystems as well as the people who obtain their food from that surrounding areas.

Green roofs have the capability to hold large quantities of rain water depending on the area of the roof. This starts a chain reaction such as, reducing stress on the sewage system, lowering the temperature in the summer and increases it in the winter due to the evaporating effect of the water present in the roof layers thereby reducing the cost of central heating and cooling systems. Furthermore, these roofs help improve the air quality and the aesthetics of the building, which in turn reduces the stress level of the people working or living in it.

Initially green roofs are quite expensive to install, however, in the long run the cost is not so great compared to the benefits it yields. Therefore, the government and private owners should focus on green infrastructures such as green roofs to improve the quality of urban life.

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Causes and Effects of lead in drinking water

September 22, 2016 asad ilyas Leave a comment

Water is the basic necessity of life. Almost 75% percent of the human body is made up of water; thus the quality of water is unequivocally a major element in playing an imperative role in our good health.

Before the discovery of the adverse health hazards of lead to the human body it was utilized in the manufacturing of everyday household objects, just as aluminum and steel are used today in making cooking utensils. In fact, Lead pipes/waterworks were quite abundant up until the mid 20^th century and are still present in numerous old buildings. This is a problem because the Lead from the pipe contaminates the water flowing through it, even though Under normal circumstances lead does not react with water, nevertheless when it makes contact with moist air, it’s reactivity escalates. This is represented in the following reaction:

2Pb(s)+ O2(g) + 2H2O(l) -> 2 Pb(OH)2(s)

This shows us the the lead reacts with the oxygen in air and water to form lead hydroxide, which is somewhat corrosive in nature and causes damage to the major organ systems of the human body. Another major source of lead contamination was mining; i.e. when silver or other ores were mined lead was a byproduct which usually contaminated the soil and in turn the water table when it rained or when mines near rivers were flooded.

Until recent years (in some cases it still is), lead had been widely used in paints as a pigment or as a base, this lead mixed in with the water table when it rained because the paint ran off with the water ultimately ending up in our drinking water supply. Conversely organic lead was also pragmatically used in petroleum products ending up as a major source of lead because as the fuel was used the lead was released into the atmosphere which in turn mixed in with the water table/drinking water when it rained.

Recent Studies have shown that Lead in drinking water reduces the IQ of the consumer especially in children below the age of six, furthermore; overexposure to lead can cause: colics, skin pigmentation, paralysis, lead poisoning, necrosis of neurons, axonal degeneration, demyelination, cerebral edema and congestion.

Asad Ilyas.