Can thermocol prevent water evaporation?

Soon after the experiment by Tamil Nadu minister for cooperatives Sellur K Raju, who inaugurated the unconventional method to conserve water in drought hit Tamil Nadu, many people started criticizing him and other officials involved in the experiment. People started creating memes in this matter without verifying or confirming whether thermocol prevent water evaporation and the successful research which was conducted in Devergaon village in Niphad tahshil of Nasik district, Maharashtra.

"Can thermocol prevent water evaporation?" If this is your question, then my answer to your question is a big YES !! THERMOCOL CAN PREVENT WATER EVAPORATION.

Studies prove that thermocol is seen as a good agent to prevent evaporation, although it can be done only on a small scale, for example in a pond. But we tried to cover the multipurpose Vaigai Dam, which has 6091 million m3 of Total Storage Capacity and 1586 Tcm of Dam Volume Content while a pond is 25,000 ft2 or 0.57 acres in area.

It’s not a mistake, they just tried an experiment.

Currently there are four techniques adopted to reduce evaporation loss from the water bodies practiced by developed countries and Australia has implemented these techniques to reduce evaporation loss.The techniques are;

1. Floating modules

2. Floating bubble-wrap type sheets

3. Suspended permeable (shade cloth) covers and

4. Suspended impermeable covers.

It is understood that suspended and floating covers are the most effective evaporation reduction mechanisms, as they significantly reduce incoming solar radiation, trap vaporised water and decrease wind speed over water (Burston, 2002; Craig et al. , 2005; Department of Natural Resources and Mines, 2003; Finn and Barnes, 2007; Watts, 2005). Burston and Akbarzadeh (1995), a pioneer research centre in United States studied an Aqua Cap prototype and found that it offered reasonable efficiency (65.4%) while still allowing oxygen dissolution and the penetration of solar radiation into the water body.

In the present study the technique of reducing evaporation from small farm pond with the use of thermocol sheets as floating cover is discussed and the results are compared with another farm pond without any floating cover. Out of total water spread of the farm pond, only seventy-five percent of the water spread was covered with the thermocol sheets to allow entry of air in to the pond. Devergaon village in Niphad tahshil of Nasik district, Maharashtra, India was selected as study area, as this area is facing water scarcity problem. March April and May were selected as the observation months, as during these three months evaporation loss is tremendous and control of evaporation loss during this period play crucial role in management of agricultural industry.

It is observed that 32 % of water is saved with this simple technique. Pond without any cover lost 32% of water trough evaporation. The cost of covering the pond is Rs 48/- per square meter but it is negligible against the amount of water saved and the revenue generated due to summer season crop. It is worth to spend Rs 22500/- on thermocol floating cover as against revenue generated due to summer crop. There was thunderstorm on 15 th of March 2015 due to which sheets were broken but the effect of floating cover still remained and saving of water continued although it was slightly affected. This technique is simple and can be very much useful to farmers in the areas where water availability is a problem.

In United States they are using Millions of ‘Shade Balls’ to prevent evaporation in Californian Reservoirs.

As part of a $34.5 million project, the city's Department of Water and Power has released nearly 100 million of so-called "shade balls" into three local reservoirs in recent months. The layer of balls protects water from algae formation, dust, rain and wildlife.

$34.5 million for 3 local reservoirs = 2,31,30,52,500.00 Indian Rupee (as per June 6, 2018 11:47am)

i.e., 77,10,17,500.00 Indian Rupee for covering one reservoir

If we try to cover all the major reservoirs in Tamilnadu with Shade Balls, it will come around

77,10,17,500.00 x 16 (Major reservoirs in Tamilnadu) =12,32,63,80,000.00 Indian Rupee (as per June 6, 2018 11:47am) which is little bit higher than the Tamilnadu’s Buget - 2018 allocation for Health Department (11,638 Crore Indian Rupee)

So next time before criticizing someone we should check the validity of his doings.

Be an encourager, the world has plenty of critics already. - Dave Wilis

When Thomas Alva Edison was in research of finding a best element for electric bulb, People Criticized..

When Noah was building Ark, People Criticized ..

Thank God, they both didn’t mind people’s criticism..

The dread of criticism is the death of genius – William Gilmore Simms

Informations referred from:

Arizona University's Research Paper

https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/305376/wrrc_108.pdf?sequence=1

Research Paper on Maharashtra's experiment

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Narhari_Chaudhari2/publication/288003519_Use_of_thermocol_sheet_as_floating_cover_to_reduce_evaporation_loss_in_farm_pond/links/567d7e6808ae051f9ae48efd/Use-of-thermocol-sheet-as-floating-cover-to-reduce-evaporation-loss-in-farm-pond.pdf?origin=publication_detail

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DISCLAIMER : I'm not a supporter of this and that political party. I'm a neutral person. Just sharing the facts.