Chapter 4 Water systems

Question 1

What is the hydrological cycle?

Answer 1

It is a system of water flows and storages

Question 2

What drives the hydrological cycle?

Answer 2

The cycle is driven by heat from the sun which is responsible for the formation of clouds and weather patterns, without evaporation there would be no water cycle. Gravity is what pulls back down the water and continues the cycle

Question 3

What is evapotranspiration?

Answer 3

It is the process where water evaporates from plants, this is how water vapor gets back into the air

Question 4

What is sublimation?

Answer 4

The conversion between the solid and the gaseous phases of matter, with no intermediate liquid stage. Used to describe the process of snow and ice changing into water vapor in the air without first melting into water

Question 5

What is evaporation?

Answer 5

The process of changing water from liquid to gas. Only fresh water makes its way up to the clouds, as ocean water leaves behind salt, minerals, and metals when it evaporates

Question 6

What is condensation?

Answer 6

The process of changing water from gas to liquid. As water vapor rises, it becomes cooler and changes into tiny liquid water droplets. These merge together to form clouds.

Question 7

What is advection?

Answer 7

Transport of an atmospheric property by the wind. This horizontal transport or transfer of a quality such as heat and cold from one point to another. Advective transfers occur either in the oceans by currents of seawater or by large-scale movement in the atmosphere where humidity (atmospheric moisture) is another important property

Question 8

What is precipitation?

Answer 8

When rain, snow, sleet or hail falls from the sky. Depending on the air temperature, water can take a liquid form (rain), or a solid form (snow, sleet or hail).

Question 9

What is melting?

Answer 9

The process by which ice or snow changes into water

Question 10

What is freezing?

Answer 10

The process by which water changes from liquid to solid. Oceans, groundwater

Question 11

How does the surface current move?

Answer 11

Ocean water that is moved by the wind and affects the 400m of the ocean surface

Question 12

How do deep ocean currents move?

Answer 12

Also referred to as thermohaline, deep ocean currents make up 90% of the ocean currents and move due to differences in density.

Question 13

What affects the water density?

Answer 13

Salinity levels and temperature effect the density of water. A higher salinity level increases water density, and cold water is able to hold more salt

Question 14

What is the ocean circulatory system?

Answer 14

It is the process of the global distribution of water (matter and energy) and it is what influences the climate

Question 15

What are upwellings?

Answer 15

The process where cold water moves up to replace warm water

Question 16

What are down downwellings?

Answer 16

The process where warm water moves down to replace cold water

Question 17

What is eutrophication?

Answer 17

Eutrophication occurs due to excessive nutrients in a body of water that causes excessive growth of algae. Usually due to run-off from the land

Question 18

Why are algae harmful?

Answer 18

Algae contains toxins, noxious chemicals, and pathogens

Question 19

What affects water scarcity?

Answer 19

How much water there is and how that existing water is being used

Question 20

What is water stress?

Answer 20

Water stress is when the demand exceeds the available supply over a period of time, or when the quality of the water restricts it’s use

Question 21

Define economic water scarcity

Answer 21

Occurs due to the lack of financial resources e.g. the cost of treating water to make it safe to drink

Question 22

Define physical water scarcity

Answer 22

Occurs when there is not enough water to meet the demand

Question 23

Examples of contributors to water stress

Answer 23

Over-extraction of groundwater and surface water, pollution of surface and groundwater resources, and inefficient use of water

Question 24

What do humans use freshwater for?

Answer 24

Domestic, agricultural, transportation, and marking boundaries between states

Question 25

Definition of water sustainability

Answer 25

Sustainable use of a resource at a rate that does not impact future generations

Question 26

Examples of what causes water scarcity

Answer 26

Growing populations, climate change, wasteful agricultural practices, over-pumped aquifers

Question 27

Large-scale solutions to water scarcity

Answer 27

Build dams, rainwater harvesting, desalination, artificially recharge aquifers

Question 28

Small-scale solutions to water scarcity

Answer 28

Efficient domestic use, greywater recycling, rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation

Question 29

What is water degradation?

Answer 29

The contamination of water

Question 30

Examples of what causes water degradation

Answer 30

Contamination of aquifers, industrial water pollution, and fertilizers from agriculture contaminating the water

Question 31

Examples of solutions to water degradation

Answer 31

Usage of organic farming methods, being selective with the pesticides used, industries removing pollutants from wastewater and implementing treatment plants,

Question 32

What are the different types of marine ecosystems?

Answer 32

Intertidal zones, mangroves, estuaries, lagoons, coral reefs, and deep ocean

Question 33

What is phytoplankton?

Answer 33

They are single-celled producers that float on the surface and produce 99% of primary productivity in the ocean

Question 34

What is zooplankton?

Answer 34

Single-celled animals that are primary consumers of phytoplankton

Question 35

What is dredging?

Answer 35

It is a metal bag that is dragged along the ocean floor, captures anything in it’s path

Question 36

What are gillnets?

Answer 36

A curtain of netting with large holes placed in the ocean usually traps unwanted animals such as turtles

Question 37

What is trawling?

Answer 37

A net dragged through the ocean

Question 38

What is blast fishing?

Answer 38

The use of explosives to kill all fish in the area to then later be collected. Kills all the marine life and destroys ecosystems

Question 39

Examples of benefits of fish farming

Answer 39

Scraps are used to make fishmeal, fish having alternative nutrient outlets rather than eating other fish,

Question 40

Examples of issues with fish farming

Answer 40

Lost of lower food chain fish, loss of habitat to create the fish farms, pollution of water, genetically modified fish which they escape can disrupt other ecosystems