I have memories of the beautiful and serene scene that I attempted to depict in my drawing. As a young boy, I always drove from Orange County with my family over the San Gabriel River to visit my grandparents’ home. I later learned that these large basins, known as the San Gabriel Coastal Basin Spreading Grounds, were engineered to collect rainwater and recycled water to slowly let it seep into the earth to become groundwater. When the water is diverted from the river and fills the grounds, it brings this area to life. It invites the local community to get out of their homes and walk by the water on a warm Southern California day.

Learning about groundwater was fascinating. I realized that the water in the spreading grounds that was gently disappearing in the days after it was filled would only temporarily be invisible. This is because the water that was seeping through the soil would one day come out of the surface again in a better state since it was being naturally filtered and purified further by the ground.

Looking deeper into why these spreading grounds exist, I learned that, like many parts of the world that experience droughts, approximately half of our drinking water comes from groundwater. We tend to forget how lucky we are that we have clean running water readily available in Southern California. I think even more of us don’t realize that this steady flow of essential clean water would not be possible without groundwater and the infrastructure we have engineered to efficiently extract it from below. Unfortunately, we have become so good at removing groundwater for our increasing population or new industries over the years that we have not always been able to replenish what we take away.

The fact that the spreading grounds have the beneficial effects of creating a vibrant habitat for wildlife, as I added to my drawing, and my grandparents and their neighbors can easily explore such a scarce open space in our local communities, inspires me to become an engineer. While learning about subjects like biology and science is important, I consider it even more important to take the knowledge from these subjects and solve society’s problems. We can do this by engineering infrastructure, which serves many positive purposes beyond groundwater and drinking water. These can include beautifying the community, improving well-being, and providing a rare ecosystem for our local wildlife. It's a positive effect that goes beyond this local community because the diversion of this water into the spreading grounds lowers the amount of pollutants that enter the Pacific Ocean downstream. The ocean has its own delicate and important ecosystem that is part of what makes Southern California such a great place to live.

Because climate change continues to challenge us with extreme events like droughts and flooding, our ability to store groundwater provides an important tool for engineers to provide a sustainable clean water supply and balance in our environment. I’ve also learned that we need more than just engineers to sustain our environment and secure a healthy future. I know that I can take action now to help, even before officially becoming an engineer. Such as preventing pollutants from entering storm drains and bringing more visibility to the importance of water (in the spirit of World Water Day) to inspire more people to protect our precious water resources. This way, we can secure our water, environment, and way of life.