water
Let an agent treat water as a substance with a source and a quality rather than an undifferentiated supply, and decide whether a particular water may be drunk, used or discharged.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions
Quality and fitness for a use What is in this water and what that permits.
What is in it
Dissolved and suspended content.
Contaminants and limits
What is measured, against what limit, by whom.
- What is measured in this water, at what concentration, against whose limit? measurement
- When was the sample taken, and what has happened to the supply since? provenance
Fitness by use
Potable, process, irrigation and discharge.
Use-specific acceptance
Which uses this water is currently fit for.
- Which uses is this water fit for, and which is it not? boundary
- What must an agent refuse to permit on a general quality claim alone? action
Source and treatment Where it came from and what was done to it.
Source
Surface, ground, rain, desalinated or recycled.
Source and its typical burden
Where it came from and what that implies before treatment.
- What is the source of this water, and what contamination is typical of it? definition
- How is the source recorded and verified? provenance
Treatment
Processes applied and what each removes or adds.
Treatment train and residuals
What was done and what the process leaves behind.
- What treatment has this water had, and what does each stage remove? definition
- What does the treatment itself add, and is that within limits? measurement
Delivery, storage and continuity How it arrives and what happens on the way.
Conveyance
Pipes, channels, tankers and what they contribute.
Conveyance effects
How delivery changes the water.
- How is this water delivered, and what does the conveyance add or remove? definition
- Which materials in the system constrain what may be supplied through it? boundary
Continuity of supply
Interruption, pressure and what depends on both.
Interruption and consequence
What fails when supply stops, and how fast.
- What is the continuity of this supply, and what interruptions are recorded? measurement
- What must an agent arrange ahead of an interruption that is already known? action
Discharge and environment What happens to it after use.
Waste water
What use added and what must be removed before return.
Discharge quality
What may lawfully be returned, and where.
- What does this use add to the water, and what limits apply to returning it? definition
- Under whose consent is discharge permitted, with what monitoring? provenance
Environmental effect
Abstraction and discharge as effects on a place.
Effect on the receiving body
What taking and returning water does where it happens.
- What effect does abstraction or discharge have on the receiving environment? measurement
- What must an agent refuse to plan because of that effect? action
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Physical world and living systems
- Entry kind
- thing
- Plane
- PHY
- Domain
- PHY.MAT
- Other names and narrower kinds
- surface water, stormwater, rainwater, Zelandic surface water, boezem, bank filtration, meltwater, heavily modified waterbody, precipitation water, Glacial milk, hydrogen tritium oxide, water O-15
What it is Filled
The compound of hydrogen and oxygen that is liquid at ordinary temperatures, essential to all known life, and the substance that water infrastructure exists to move, hold and treat.
Why it exists Filled
Let an agent treat water as a substance with a source and a quality rather than an undifferentiated supply, and decide whether a particular water may be drunk, used or discharged.
Distinguishing features Filled
- A pure compound, so its constants are fixed and its quality is entirely what is dissolved or suspended in it
- Drinking, process, waste and environmental water are four regulated categories of one substance
- Quality is a claim about a sample at a time, never a property of a supply
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Supply water for drinking that has not been shown to be safe.
- Leave water running or valves open where it can flood property or waste a scarce supply.
- Discharge contaminated water into drains or the environment.
- Cut off a household's water supply without lawful authority.
Only with a human decision
- Shutting off supply to a building or area.
- Declaring water unsafe or safe to drink for others.
May
- Measure and report water quality, level and flow.
- Operate taps, valves and pumps the agent is authorized to control.
Moral aspects Filled
- Safe drinking water is a human right; access and quality must not depend on who asks.
- Water is shared with ecosystems and downstream users.
Who is affected
- Everyone who drinks or uses it
- Downstream communities and ecosystems
Owners Filled
Steward
The water utility for supplied water; public or environmental authorities for natural water bodies.
Master systems
- Water utility asset and quality records
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- Q11723014 - registry parent class
- Q50690 - registry parent class
related
- chemical substance - inherits composition, purity and hazard questions
- water supply infrastructure - in human use it is inseparable from what delivers it
- drinking water quality regime - decides what may be supplied as potable
- water body - a lake is a place; water is a substance
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.water
- Wikidata: Q283 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q283)
- CAS: 7732-18-5 names the compound, not any particular water
- supply zone identifier: utility-specific the unit quality is actually reported against
Direct properties required Filled
- freezing point: 0 C - pure, at standard pressure
- boiling point: 100 C - falls with altitude, which matters for disinfection by boiling
- density: 1000 kg/m3 - maximum near 4 C, which is why ice floats
- household use: 100-200 L per person per day - varies by region more than by anything else
Recognition required Filled
- Clarity says little about safety: dangerous water can be clear and safe water cloudy
- Source and treatment history identify a water, and neither is visible
- State - ice, liquid, vapour - is the one thing appearance settles reliably
- Colourless and transparent in small quantity. Colour in a body of water comes from depth, suspended matter and what lives in it, not from the water.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- drink it, if its quality allows
- wash and clean with it
- heat and cool with it, which is most industrial use
- move it through pipes, channels and vehicles
- contaminate it, which is the failure that matters
- treat it, moving it between qualities
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Microbial contamination, the fastest-acting and most common failure
- Chemical contamination, including from the pipes rather than the source
- Scarcity and interruption, which makes everything downstream fail at once
- Scalding and drowning, hazards of the substance rather than its quality
Standards and interfaces required Filled
- WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality, from which most national standards derive
- National drinking water regulations, which set enforceable limits and monitoring
- Discharge consents, which govern what may be returned to the environment
Context of use required Filled
- Sustaining life, and in use: drinking, washing, cooking, cooling, transport and carrying away waste.
- by regime: potable, process, irrigation, waste, environmental
- by source: surface, ground, rain, desalinated, recycled
- by treatment: raw, filtered, disinfected, demineralised
- by state: ice, liquid, steam
Sources Filled
- Wikidata item Q283: water - identity and sense of the item
- Wikipedia: Water - general description of the item
Open questions
- How should the model separate the substance from the supply, given that quality claims belong to the supply?
- What is the right unit for a quality claim: the sample, the zone, or the moment?
- How should recycled and desalinated water be represented when regulation treats them differently from the same water by another route?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q283/spec.json