The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity

Question 1

What is evaporation?

Answer 1

Water heated by the sun turns to gas and rises

Question 2

What is surface run off?

Answer 2

Water runs across the land into the rivers, lakes and oceans

Question 3

What is transpiration?

Answer 3

Water that is released as a gas into the atmosphere from leaves in plants

Question 4

What is ground water flow?

Answer 4

Water the flow deep underground into aquifers

Question 5

What is precipitation?

Answer 5

Rain, sleet, snow etc…

Question 6

What is interception?

Answer 6

Trees and plants catch the precipitation and slows surface runoff

Question 7

What is through flow?

Answer 7

Water moves from the surface into the soil and rock below

Question 8

What is condensation?

Answer 8

Water vapour turn back into a liquid and forms clouds

Question 9

What is a closed system?

Answer 9

Where inputs and outputs are balanced

Question 10

What is solar energy?

Answer 10

Energy from the sun heating water and causing evaporation and transpiration

Question 11

What is gravitational potential energy?

Answer 11

ways in which water accelerates under gravity, thus transporting it into rivers and eventually the sea.

Question 12

What is fossil water?

Answer 12

Untapped ancient stores of fresh water exists in the popular regions and beneath many deserts. new technologies now make it possible to access the water stores known as aquifers

Question 13

What is the global distribution of water?

Answer 13

total water...
Oceans- 97.5%
fresh water...
Glaciers- 68.7%
Ground water- 30.1%
surface and atmospheric water...
Fresh water lakes- 67.4%

Question 14

What is a store?

Answer 14

something that holds a supply of water

Question 15

What are fluxes?

Answer 15

another word for flows or surface run off

Question 16

Give examples of some processes?

Answer 16

Precipitation, evaporation, transpiration

Question 17

What does a flow do?

Answer 17

Transfers water from one store to another

Question 18

What is blue water?

Answer 18

Fresh water stores in rivers, streams and lakes (The visible part of the hydrological cycle)

Question 19

What is green water?

Answer 19

Fresh water stores in soil and vegetation.

Question 20

What is residence time?

Answer 20

The average time a water molecule will sped in a store or reservoirs

Question 21

What is the cryosphere?

Answer 21

water frozen into the ice and snow

Question 22

What is the global water budget?

Answer 22

where oceans lose more water through evaporation than they gain through precipitation, whereas the opposite is true for landmasses

Question 23

What is a drainage basin?

Answer 23

it is an area of land drained by a river and its tributes (river system). it includes water found in the water table and surface run off. there is an imaginary line separating drainage basins called a water shed, usually this is a ridge of high land.

Question 24

What physical factors affect drainage basins?

Answer 24

Affecting inputs (precipitation)... 
orographic
frontal
convectional
Affecting flows...
interception
infiltration and through flow
direct runoff (overland flow)
percolation and groundwater flow
affecting outputs...
evaporation and transpiration
channel flow

Question 25

What human factors effect Drainage basins?

Answer 25

urbanisation
reservoirs
ground water obstruction
cloud seeding

Question 26

What is the water balance budget?

Answer 26

this is the balance between precipitation, evaporation and run off. it is a tool to asses the current status and trends in water resources availability in a area over a specific period of time

Question 27

What is a river regime?

Answer 27

It can be defined as the annual variation in discharge or flow of a river at a particular point or guarding station usually measured. much of this flow s not from immediate precipitation or run off, but is supplied from ground water between periods of rain.

Question 28

What is a storm hydrograph?

Answer 28

A hydrograph is a graph showing changes in the discharge of a river over a short period of time. its shows the rate of flow verses time past a specific point in a river. before a storm starts a main supply of water to a river is via base flow; however this changes as soon as the storm starts at the water can approach via many routs e.g.. through flow and overland flow.

Question 29

What are the 6 factors that effect river regimes?

Answer 29

the size of the river and where measurements are taken in the basin
the amount, pattern and intensity of precipitation
the temperature experienced; greater evaporation when temperatures are higher
the geology and overlying sills, especially their permeability and porosity
the amount and type of vegetation cover: wetlands can hold water and release it very slowly into the system
human activities such as dam building which can regulate flow

Question 30

Describe the Amazon rivers regime…

Answer 30

6308km long and drains nearly 6millionkm2, its humid climate and flows over ancient shield area of rock: its peak discharge in September which linked to wet and dry seasons and snow melt from the Andes

Question 31

Describe the Yukon river regime…

Answer 31

3540km long and has a drainage basin of about 850,000km2 it is a tundra climatic area and slows through a mountain range: its peak discharge is in may-June due to melting snow and ice, it is low from December to may due to low precipitation and frozen conditions

Question 32

Describe the river Niles river regime…

Answer 32

Has been significantly changed by the construction of the Aswan dam in 1970. the flow below the dam was reduced by 65% and became regulated between seasons so that the flood breaks in September were reduced

Question 33

What is the definition of drought?

Answer 33

an extended period of deficient rainfall relative to the multi year average for a region

Question 34

What is a meteorological drought?

Answer 34

occurs when long-term precipitation is much lower than normal, but there is no consensus regarding the threshold of the deflect or the minimum duration of the lack of precipitation that turns a dry spell into an official drought. It is a region-specific since the atmospheric conditions that result in deficiencies of precipitation are highly valuable between climate types.

Question 35

What is an agricultural drought?

Answer 35

Occurs when there is insufficient soil moisture to meet the needs of a particular crop at a particular time. it is caused by a number of factors such as precipitation shortages, differences between actual and potential evapotranspiration, soil water deficit and reduced ground water r reservoir levels a deficit of rainfall over cropped areas during critical periods of the growth cycle can result in crop failures or undeveloped crops with greatly depleted yields. Agricultural drought is typically evident after a meteorological drought but before a hydrological drought.

Question 36

What is an Hydrological drought?

Answer 36

Occurs when there are deficiencies in surface and subsurface water supplies as measured in rivers, reservoirs, lakes and groundwater. it originates with a deficiency of precipitation but is usually out of phase with or after the occurrence of a meteorological and agricultural droughts as it takes longer for precipitation deficiency’s to reach some of the components of the hydrological system such as soil moisture, stream flow and ground water or reservoir levels.

Question 37

What is a socio-economic drought?

Answer 37

occurs when the water demand for social and economic purposes (such as crop irrigation or hydro-electric power) exceeds water availability. this could be the result of a weather-related shortfall in water supply or overuse of the available water supply’s. it differs form the other types of drought because its occurrence depends on temporal and spatial variations in supply and demand.

Question 38

What are the physical causes of drought?

Answer 38

Atmospheric circulation
The intertropical convergence zone
El nino southern oscillation cycles

Question 39

What is atmospheric circulation and how does it cause drought?

Answer 39

Atmospheric circulation is a large-scale movement of masses of air. The origin of these processes is the sun’s radiation. The sun waves radiate the short-wave radiation. The earth absorbs only a part of this energy. The other part is radiated back to the atmosphere and to the universe. The back radiation is long-waved. The thermal energy is distributed thanks to the circulation of the air on the surface of the earth. it causes drought due to the high and low pressure caused by these different cells.

Question 40

What is the intertropical convergent zone and how does this cause drought?

Answer 40

It is a belt of low pressure that circles the earth generally near the equator where the trade winds of the northern and southern hemispheres come together. This can move with different seasons causing alternating wet and dry seasons

Question 41

What is El nino southern oscillation cycles and how do they cause drought?

Answer 41

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an irregularly periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, affecting climate of much of the tropics and subtropics. The warming phase of the sea temperature is known as El Niño and the cooling phase as La Niña. Southern Oscillation is the accompanying atmospheric component, coupled with the sea temperature change: El Niño is accompanied with high, and La Niña with low air surface pressure in the tropical western Pacific. The two periods last several months each (typically occurring every few years) and their effects vary in intensity.

Question 42

What are the human causes of droughts?

Answer 42

over abstraction
overcultivation
over grazing
deforestation

Question 43

What case study could you use when explaining over abstraction that caused drought?

Answer 43

ARAL SEA
was a lake located in between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in central Asia. however due to the cotton industry diverging all the rivers it caused the sea to dry up causing large fishing markets and businesses to collapse. along with causing summers to be as hot as 60degrees Celsius

Question 44

What case study could you use when explaining over cultivating and overgrazing that caused drought?

Answer 44

SAHEL
it is a vast semi-arid region across Africa at the southern edge of the Sahara desert. there has been a decline in annual rainfall. this is caused by air pollutants, result of higher sea surface temperatures caused by anthropogenic climate warming. along with El Niño which increases water stress. this has caused higher poverty rates, population growth, desertification, venerable increase, famine, low level development and conflict.

Question 45

What case study would I use when explaining how physical factors have caused drought?

Answer 45

AUSTRALIA
millennium drought (longest uninterrupted series of years with bellow medium rainfall). El Nino has cause 80% of rainfall decline, the Hadley cell has also caused this, along with the STR (intensified global surface temperatures increase) and anthropogenic global warming (reducing the temperature gradient). this has caused a declining ecosystem, inrangeable amenities, decline in animals (unable to adapt), ecosystem functioning, ecosystem resilience.

Question 46

What factors effect the river discharge?

Answer 46

Drainage basin size
Drainage basin relief
soil type
rock type
drainage density
natural vegetation
land use
precipitation intensity
precipitation duration
snowfall melt
evapotranspiration