Chapter 11

Question 1

Surface Water

Answer 1

water that collects on the surface of the ground.

Question 2

River System

Answer 2

is sometimes called a drainage system. It is the whole natural water system in a drainage basin.

Question 3

Watershed

Answer 3

is an area of land that drains or “sheds” water into a specific waterbody.

Question 4

Groundwater

Answer 4

water held underground in the soil or in pores and crevices in rock.

Question 5

Aquifer

Answer 5

is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures or unconsolidated materials.

Question 6

Porosity

Answer 6

percentage of space in rock or soil occupied by voids, whether the voids are isolated or connected

Question 7

Permeability

Answer 7

is the property of rocks that is an indication of the ability for fluids (gas or liquid) to flow through rocks.

Question 8

Recharge zone

Answer 8

surface water or precipitation percolate through relatively porous, unconsolidated, or fractured materials, such as sand, moraine deposits, or cracked basalt, that lie over a water bearing, or aquifer, formation.

Question 9

Potable

Answer 9

Drinking water, also known as potable water, is water that is safe to drink or use for food preparation.

Question 10

Pathogen

Answer 10

In biology, a pathogen in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism that can produce disease.

Question 11

Dam

Answer 11

The construction of a dam blocks the flow of sediment downstream, leading to downstream erosion of these sedimentary depositional environments, and increased sediment build-up in the reservoir

Question 12

Reservoir

Answer 12

is most commonly an enlarged natural or artificial lake created using a dam to store water.

Question 13

Desalination

Answer 13

is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water.

Question 14

Water Pollution

Answer 14

Water pollution occurs when harmful substances—often chemicals or microorganisms—contaminate a stream, river, lake, ocean, aquifer, or other body of water, degrading water quality and rendering it toxic to humans or the environment.

Question 15

Point source pollution

Answer 15

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines point source pollution as “any single identifiable source of pollution from which pollutants are discharged, such as a pipe, ditch, ship or factory smokestack.” Factories and sewage treatment plants are two common types of point sources.

Question 16

Nonpoint source pollution

Answer 16

Excess fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides from agricultural lands and residential areas.

Question 17

Wastewater

Answer 17

is any water that has been contaminated by human use. Wastewater is “used water from any combination of domestic, industrial, commercial or agricultural activities, surface runoff or stormwater, and any sewer inflow or sewer infiltration”.

Question 18

Artificial Eutrophication

Answer 18

occurs when human activity introduces increased amounts of these nutrients, which speed up plant growth and eventually choke the lake of all of its animal life.

Question 19

Thermal pollution

Answer 19

is defined as a sudden increase or decrease in temperature of a natural body of water, which may be ocean, lake, river or pond by human influence.

Question 20

Biomagnification

Answer 20

also known as bioamplification or biological magnification, is any concentration of a toxin, such as pesticides, in the tissues of tolerant organisms at successively higher levels in a food chain.