Chapter 11- Water Flashcards
H2O is
a greenhouse gas, it hold heat
drought=
- no clouds
- positive feedback loop
Water in Canada
- lakes and rivers (over 2 million lakes, 8500 named rivers)
- groundwater (50% of our freshwater, 6million Canadians rely on ground water)
- glaciers (1000 named glaciers)
What % of Canada is covered with lakes and rivers?
12%
aquifer
sand and rocks that hold water if oil and gas pipes break through the aquifer must be careful about contaminants
Ground water
- creating by surface water passing into the ground
- contained in sand & gravel, pores and cracks in bedrock (aquifers)
Canada supplies how much global freshwater>
20% of global freshwater supply
only 0.5% of the population
-water used to be a commons resource but now it is becoming commercialized
What % of wetlands does Canada have?
25%- more than any other country
Importance of wetlands
- cleaning water before it reaches aquifer
- some of most biodiverse areas due to interface between land and water
Intake
amount withdrawn or used from water supply
Discharge
amount returned to the source
Consumption
intake-discharge
recirculation
water used 2+ times, or recycled to another use
gross water use
intake + recirculation (hydroelectric dams=100% returned to original source
-can decrease water use by having a water meter
wasting water
agriculture and irrigation
-very wasteful to water @ 30 degrees
Consumption
Canada is 2nd in the world USA is 1st
about 326 litres per person per day at home
refugee camp had 20L per day
Reasons for complacency about water supplies
-due to myth of superabundance
Human interventions in hydrological cycle
- water diversions (changing course of a river to divert it somewhere else)
- divert river into another river has huge ecological implications with species
- do diversions to avoid flooding
How many dams to we have in Canada
600 large dams
How many water basins?
60 large inter-basin diversions
Purpose of diversions
- Increase water supplies for community regions
- Deflect watercourses away from or around areas
- Enhance capacity of a river for other uses (floating, log transport, wastes)
- Combine/consolidate water lows for hydroelectricity
James Bay Project
** READ IN TEXTBOOK
Water pollution comes from…
industrial
urban
agriculture
point source pollution
origin easy to identify (know where it came from)
non-point source pollution
can’t be identified with specific places
-hard to know where it came from ex) agriculture run-off, car pollution
Point Sources
ex) factory, pouring stuff into stream, waste from house, institutions
- can be treated to varying degrees
3 levels of water treatment
- Primary- removes only insoluble material (let waste settle out)
- Secondary- removes bacterial impurities from water that has already had primary treatment, bacteria that eats up the nasties
- Tertiary- removes chemicals and nutrient contaminants following secondary treatment
Water Source for Camrose
dry mead lake
Ways of categorizing water
-excellent, good, fair, marginal, poor
Bow River@ cochrane= excellent
Bow River @ Calgary= fair
Athabasca river is in the best shape in many parts of the province
Non-point sources
diffuse pollution- agricultural and urban run-off
Layered problem-
1st layer- environmental degradation & economic costs imposed on downstream users
2nd layer- ecosystem health or integrity and especially human health
3rd layer- problems regarding human values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviour
Buffer
keep trees and plants around to filter the water, birth control pills into organisms causing gender changes (more females)
Solution to pollution
dilution (popular phrasing not a good solution)
Water Security
-ensuring a sufficient quantity of water of adequate quality for human use
Watershed
- an area or ridege of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas
- an area or region drained by a river, river system, or other body of water
We are in the…
battleriver watershed
Water as a hazard
Flooding- normal hydrological function
- water is dynamic and cannot be controlled
- require regular floods to regenerate organisms
- Pakistan flood killed over 100s of 1000s of people
Reducing Flood Damage
- Structural Approaches- modify behaviour of natural system by delaying or redirecting flood waters
- Non-structural approaches- modify behaviour of the people
Levies
ways to channel water away
Structural Approaches
- Upstream dams and storage reservoirs
- Protective dykes or levees
- Deepening or straightening river channels
Non-Structural Approaches
- Land-use zoning
- Relocation of structures (move things from areas of flooding)
- Information & education
- Insurance $$$$- most insurance companies won’t insure if you fill on a flood plane
Best strategy?
Structural and non-sturctural approaches (mix of the two)
Camrose
more prone to drought
-2002 and 2008 major drought years
Drought
- function of…
- lack of precipitation
- temperature
- evaporation
- evapotranspiration
- moisture retention capacity of soil
- resilience of flora & fauna
- animals able to wait out the drought
- some plants wait for drougt to grow/bloom
