Hydrology Flashcards
Define nonpoint-source pollution
Examples include: Land runoff, rainfall, deposition, and drainage. It’s the non-direct form of pollution and is carried through the water cycle
Where is most of earths fresh water located?
Solidified at the north and south poles
Define stream load
All of the sediment carried by a river
Define aquifer
Any body of rock through which water can flow and can store enough water for domestic and industrial use
Define porosity
The total volume of the open spaces or pores in a rock
Define well sorted
When all the particles in a sediment are about the same size
Define permeability
The ease with which water can pass through a rock or sediment
Define zone of saturation
The underground layer of rock where all of the open spaces are filled with water
Define water table
The upper surface of the zone of saturation
Define spring
A natural flow of groundwater that has reached the surface
Define chemical weathering
Rock is broken down due to chemical reaction
Explain a young river
Has the fastest velocity, v-shaped, narrow or straight, has rapids, and has lots of erosion.
Explain a mature river
Fast to medium velocity, u-shaped, less erosion then a young river, smooth riverbed, slower than young.
Explain an old river
Slowest velocity, u-shaped with meanders and oxbow lakes, little erosion.
Define cave
Large underground cave due to carbonization of limestone
Define sinkhole
When a cavern collapses because te water table has dropped
Define geyser
Underground pressure and the water erupts
Where is fresh water found
Lakes, rivers, glaciers, and groundwater.
Create a list for the uses of water
Lawns, pools, hygiene, cooling tanks, energy or power, crop irrigation, living stock production
List in order the layers of soil
Humus, topsoil, subsoil, and bedrock
What are the inputs of the water budget
Precipitation and absorption
What are the outputs of the water budget
Runoffs, humans, plants, and animals, evaporation, and movement.
Define recharge zones
Areas where water moves below surface to aquifer.
What are the five types of chemical weathering
Carbonation, oxidation, plants acids (from roots), hydrolysis of minerals, and acidic rain ( a lot on east coast)
Name the three types of physical weathering
Exfoliation, ice wedging, an abrasion
Define leaching
Water carries the dissolved minerals to lower levels of rock
How is acid rain created
Waste gases are released into air and combine with water in the atmosphere
Define erosion
Products of weathering are transported by gravity, wind, glaciers or water
What are the four practices that farmers can do to prevent erosion
Terracing, contour plowing, strip-cropping, crop rotation
What are the four things that can trigger landslides
Heavy rainfall, spring thaws, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes.
Define travertine
A form of water deposited calcite
Define karst topography
Regions where the effects of the chemical weathering die to groin water are clearly visible at the surface
Define groundwater
Water stored beneath earths surface in sediment and rock formations
Explain an ordinary well
It source of water is from the ground, it’s found in highly permeable rock below the water table and there’s pumping involved
Explain an artesian well
Flows freely with no pumping
Define rejuvenated river
A river whose gradient or slope has become steeper
Define natural levees
Raised banks
Define tributaries
Feeder streams that flow into a main stream In a river system
Define watershed
Drainage basin that water runs off into
Define head-ward erosion
The process of lengthening and branching of a stream
Define topography
A region on earths surface in which landforms have a common origin.
Define relief
Change in elevation
Explain mountains
Greatest reliefs, high peaks, steep valleys, usually metamorphic, not horizontal layers
Explain plateaus
Medium relief, stream valleys, flat bedrock stricter, usually sedimentary
Explain plains
Little relief, low elevation, flat
