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Enviro.Sci - Miss lambert > 5: The Hydrosphere > Flashcards

5: The Hydrosphere Flashcards

1
Q

What are the most common uses of river water?

A
  • Irrigation
  • HEP
  • Drinking
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2
Q

What is abstraction?

A

Taking a recourse out of its source

e. g. abstraction of water includes:
- domestic
- industrial
- agriculture

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3
Q

What are non-abstractive uses?

A

When the resource such as water is used and put back from where it was removed.

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4
Q

What is over-abstraction?

A

Unattainably extracting something so it has a consequence on its source and surrounding area

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5
Q

What are some examples of non-abstractive uses of rivers?

A
  • HEP
  • transport
  • recreation (swimming etc)
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6
Q

What is an Aquifer?

A

A body of permeable rock which contains or transmits groundwater, below the water table.

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7
Q

What is an unconfined aquifer?

A

When the aquifer is covered by permeable rock, so can receive water from the surface.

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8
Q

What is a confined aquifer?

A

When the aquifer is covered by a non permeable rock, so cant receive water from the surface.

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9
Q

What is recharge?

A

When an aquifer is filled by through infiltration and percolation.

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10
Q

What percolation?

A

When water filters down into the ground.

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11
Q

What is a fossil aquifer?

A

An aquifer which hasn’t been recharged since the last ice age.

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12
Q

What is the recharge zone of an aquifer?

A

The area above an aquifer which recharges the aquifer.

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13
Q

What are the benefits of using groundwater?

A
  • Occurs where there are few rivers
  • responds slowly to changes in rainfall - drought tolerance
  • clean/doesn’t require much cleaning
  • doesn’t require expensive storage/can be taken directly out.
  • no evaperation loss
  • no land used
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14
Q

What is salt water incursion?

A

When excessive pumping in coastal areas can cause water table to fall, resulting in saltwater being drawn in and contamination of the water supply.

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15
Q

What is land subsidence?

A

Land subsidence occurs when there is a loss of support below ground. This is most often caused by the overuse of groundwater, when the soil collapses, compacts, and drops.

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16
Q

What are the GRACE satellites?

A

Two satellites which measure the quantities of water stores through using the varying levels of gravity experienced by different amounts of mass (water) beneath the satellite.

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17
Q

What is a reservoir?

A

Any natural or man-made store of water.

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18
Q

How do you calculate the residence time?

A

volume/ annual discharge

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19
Q

What is a dynamic equilibrium?

A

When the amount of change that is happening to a system is in balance with that combatting the change leaving no overall change.

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20
Q

What is desalinisation?

A

The process of removing salt from water sources.

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21
Q

What is salt water incursion?

A

Saltwater intrusion is the movement of saline water into freshwater aquifers, which can lead to contamination of drinking water sources and other consequences. This usually occurs due to over extraction of aquifers, drawing in sea water.

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22
Q

What does anthropogenic mean?

A

Human related/caused.

23
Q

What is turbidity?

A

A measure of the level of suspended solids in water which affects the ability of light to penetrate the water.

24
Q

What is the name of the process by which salt water is drawn into an aquifer?

A

Salt water incursion

25
Q

What is interception?

A

When rainfall is stoppped from entering the ground immediatly due vegetation/impermeable surfaces.

26
Q

How would planting a forest affect the hydrological cycle?

A
  • increasd initerception
  • Reduced river flow due to root uptake
  • reduced soil moisture
27
Q

What is a residence time?

A

The average amount of time water spends in a reseroir before moving to the next

28
Q

What is residence time used for?

A
  • to determine how long it will take for a pollutant to reach an contaminate a water source
  • determine how long until a water source will become uncontaminated
29
Q

What are the effects of some anthropogenic changes to the water cycle?

A
  • global warming (increased evaperation reduces volume in rivers, land ice melt increases volume in se)
  • dam building (reduces volume in rivers down stream of the dam)
  • urbanisation (increases interception, decreases infiltration, increases surface run off)
  • agriculture ( irrigation increases use of water from reservoirs)
30
Q

How to calculate residence time

A

volume in reservoir/mean transfer rate

31
Q

How does water treatment vary depending on water source?

A
  • Aquifers require little treeatment such as sterilization or filitration as they have been relatively untouched, allowed any sediment to settle and bacteria cannot grow.
  • Rivers have high turbidity and bacteria so require more sedimentation/chloriniation
  • Land reservoirs require more chorination but sediment has usually had time to settle.
32
Q

How is water sterilized for domestic use?

A
  • chlorination
  • ozone
  • UV
  • boiling/filtration
33
Q

What are the effects of a river reservoir on downtream

A
  • reduced river flow

- reduced nutrience downstream

34
Q

How can water supply problems affect the development of a country?

A
  • disease spread
  • hinder industries reliant on water supply
  • dehydration reducing worker productivity
35
Q

What are the consequences of over abstraction?

A

-rivers drying up
-marine life dying
-reduced tourism
-reduce rrecreation opportunities
-health issues - aral sea
-lowered water table
-wetlands drying up
(think aral sea)

36
Q

What is exploiting?

A

Making full use of and deriving benefi from

37
Q

What abstractive uses of water is there?

A

Domestic
-drinking, toilets, washing and recreation

Industrial
-powerplants, mining, temperature control, transport and steam

Agriculture
-irrigation

38
Q

What factors make an aquifer good?

A
  • high porosity
  • high permeability
  • high recharge rate
39
Q

What is the name above an aquifer where water can enter the reservoir?

A

the recharge zone

40
Q

Name two enviromental problems associated with over exploitatoin of aquifers?

A
  • Salt incursion

- subsidence (cone of depression)

41
Q

In what ways can water demand be reduced?

A
  • Exploiting new sources such as rivers, reservoirs, aquifers and seawater.
  • grey water use
  • low water appliances (drip irrigation etc)
42
Q

What positive enviromental imapcts are there for exploitting man made reservoirs?

A
  • Potential Habitat creation
  • can be used for flood control
  • inter basin transfers can be used to generate HEP
43
Q

What negative enviromental imapcts are there for exploiting man made reservoirs?

A
  • habitat loss
  • disruption to migration patterns
  • loss of downstream soil quality
44
Q

What postive/negative impacts are there from exploiting rivers for water?

A

Positive
-local access to water reducing energy and need for transportation

Negatives

  • reduced flow
  • habitat changes e.g. wetlands
  • increased treatment, more energy used
45
Q

Positive impacts from exploiting rainwater sources?

A
  • reduced demand on public supply
  • less treatment
  • less storage required
  • less aquifer abstraction
46
Q

Name four things that affect the usefullness of a water supply?

A
  • pollutants
  • volume
  • accessibility
  • location
47
Q

What is porosity?

A

The amount of airfilled spaces within a rock, this allows lots of water to be stored within them as aquifers.

48
Q

How is salt removed from a source?

A

Desalination occurs through reverse osmosis where slat water is forced through a membrane at high pressure.

49
Q

What are the different types of water transfer involved in the hydrological cycle?

A
  • precipitation
  • interception
  • infiltration
  • percolation
  • groundwater flow
  • surface run off
  • evaperation
  • transpiration
  • river discharge
50
Q

What factors affect the location of reservoirs?

A
  • topography
  • geology
  • water reliability
  • pollution risk
  • availability of workers/materials
51
Q

Why may water abstracted from an aquifer in a coastal area be unsuitable for irrigation if over abstraction occurs?

A
  • The water table may fall below sea level
  • This would cause salt water incursion

-This would increase salinity of irrigation water which may be outside species range of tolerance and cause osmotic dehydration

52
Q

What advantages are there from using aquifers for irrigation rather than rivers?

A
  • Less susceptible to drought and short term variations in rain making it more reliable
  • low turbidity therefore less processing required before use
  • Cleaner as contains less pathogens and less likely to contain run off of pesticides etc.
  • Less Land use conflicts
  • Less equipment/construction cost
53
Q

What environmental problems occur from over abstraction of rivers?

A
  • Reduced availability to downstream users caused by reduced flow volume
  • Loss of fish breeding + spawning grounds caused by sedimentation
  • Reduced aquifer recharge rates caused by reduced river flow volume
  • Increased concentration of pollutant such as pesticides caused by reduced flow volume

Enviro.Sci - Miss lambert (5 decks)

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