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Geography > Water > Flashcards

Water Flashcards

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1
Q

Def. Water Surplus

A

A situation in which the usable water supply exceeds the demand

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2
Q

Def. Water Deficit

A

A situation in which the usable water supply does not satisfy the demand

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3
Q

Def. Physical Water Scarcity

A

The natural reasons for low water supply i.e. low rainfall. Deserts, such as those in the middle East are obvious examples of physical water scarcity

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4
Q

Def. Economic Water Scarcity

A

The human reasons for low water supply i.e. lack of plumbing infrastructure.

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5
Q

What are the causes of water scarcity linked to growth in demand?

A
  • Population growth
  • Domestic demand
  • Agricultural demand
  • Industrial demand
  • Energy production
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6
Q

What are the causes of water scarcity linked to falling supply?

A
  • Climate change
  • Pollution
  • Groundwater depletion
  • Sewage
  • Political
  • Mismanagement
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7
Q

Def. Appropriate Technology

A

Equipment that the local community is able to use relatively easily and without much cost.

Aka intermediate technology

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8
Q

Name examples of appropriate technology

A
  • Hand dug wells - easiest way to access water, but there can be diseases and they are unreliable
  • Gravity fed schemes - used where there is a spring on a hillside. The water can be piped from the spring down to the villages
  • Boreholes - require more equipment to dig, but can be dug quickly and usually safely. They require a hand or diesel pump to bring the water to the surface
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9
Q

What are PlayPumps and how do they work?

A

Children run around, playing on it’s merry-go-round structure, pumping water into a container

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10
Q

How much water do PlayPumps pump in one hour?

A

1400 Litres

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11
Q

What are the advantages and disadvantages of playpumps?

A
  • Cheap
  • Makes water more accesible
  • Makes water cleaner
  • Provides fun for children
  • Takes time to pump
  • Can be seen as child labour
  • Water runs out faster as well is less deep
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12
Q

What are the advantages and disadvantages of solar-powered bore-holes

A
  • Solar powered - environmentally friendly
  • Better and nore accesible than diesel
  • Low maintenance
  • Clean water
  • Constant and long-lasting supply of water
  • Expensive setup cost (this is the main restricting factor)
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13
Q

How many people live without direct access to water?

A

750 million

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14
Q

What proportion of the worlds population has no toilets?

A

1/3

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15
Q

What are the impacts of water scarcity?

A
  • Lack of education as children are sent to fetch water kilometres away
  • Increased dehydration
  • Increases water-borne diseases e.g Dysentery, Typhoid and Cholera as animals drink from the same places as humans
  • Economic decline as there is a lack of water for agriculture and industry as well
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16
Q

What are wells and boreholes, and how do they work?

A

Water soaks down through soils and rocks to collect underground.
People then extract the water by drilling boreholes or digging wells through the rock and water is brought up using buckets, pumps or pressure.

This source of water is also known as ground water.

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17
Q

What are aquifers?

A

Aquifers are naturally occurring stores of water found under the ground.

18
Q

What are the advantages of drilling boreholes and wells?

A
  • They can help exploit underground aquifers
  • Small scale wells projects often benefit communities that lack piped water.
  • Low cost & easy to maintain, making them an ‘appropriate technology’.
  • NGOs e.g. WaterAid and UNICEF provide development aid for these driling projects
19
Q

What are the disadvantages of drilling boreholes and wells?

A
  • Poor communities cannot afford fuel to power a borehole
  • Hand operated pumps will only likely work if the water bearing rocks are quite close to the surface.
  • Borehole water can be contaminated by pollutants e.g. agricultural runoff therefore it is cannot be usedwithout purification.
  • Aquifers can run out
20
Q

What are dams and reservoirs, and how do they work?

A

A dam is a large scale management scheme, an artificial structure that prevents the flow of water of a river. They are usually built in a valley with steep sides. Water builds up behind the dam, creating a reservoir.
Water can be stored in the reservoir in periods of surplus tp be used in periods of water deficit.

21
Q

What are the advantages of dams and reservoirs?

A
  • Water can be stored in reservoirs during periods of water surplus and released to when it is needed e.g. for irrigation.
  • Generates hydroelectric power
  • Controls flooding downstream
  • Recreational opportunities as the result of the construction of dams and reservoirs e.g. boating or fishing.
  • Reservoirs offer new habitats for plants and animals.
22
Q

What are the disadvantages of dams and reservoirs?

A
  • Very high initial cost
  • Not a very good solution in hot areas as water may evaporate
  • They can lead to the displacement of people e.g.The Three Gorges Dam in China displaced thousands of people and flooded several settlements
  • To build them land will need to be flooded, leading to the loss of farmland and ecosystems.
  • Fish migration can be disrupted by dams
  • Disasters such as dam collapses may occur destroying and killing all wildlife downstream
23
Q

What is desalination, and how does it work?

A

The process at a desalination plant to separate salt from water, transforming saltwater to freshwater so it can be drank.

Using processes like Multi-stage flash distillation or reverse osmosis

24
Q

What are the advantages of desalination?

A
  • You get freshwater from saltwater, and saltwater is plentiful
  • Desalination is becoming more common in NEEs (Nearly Emerging Economies) as there is an increasing demand for freshwater restricts economic development.
  • It can provide drinking water in areas where no natural supply of potable water exists.
  • Saudi Arabia gets 70 percent of its fresh water via the process.
  • Can provide water to drier areas or in times of drought.
  • It helps to preserve current fresh water supplies
  • It can be made more sustainable, for e.g. using renewable energy to power the plants
25
Q

What are the disadvantages of desalination?

A
  • High initial cost
  • The process is very energy-intensive and expensive, only viable option in MEDCs
  • Desalination has environmental impacts e.g. salt waste can damage ecosystems
  • High carbon emissions
26
Q

What are water transfer schemes?

A

The transfer of water from one place to another, from an area of water surplus to an area of water deficit

27
Q

What percentages are the energy consumption spread in the world

A

Agriculture (69%)

Industry (20%)

Domestic (11%)

28
Q

What percentages are the energy consumption spread in Africa

A

85% agriculture

8% domestic

7% industry

29
Q

How many litres does it consume to flush a toilet?

A

6 - 12

30
Q

How much does the average Sub Saharan citizen consume compared to the average US citizen?

A

Sub-Saharan Africa gets 25l

US gets 600l

SLURP

31
Q

Where is the River Colorado and which states in the US rely on it?

A

The river colorado originates from the state of Colorado and extends throughout Arizona, touching many states. The area that fuels the river is named the Colorado River Basin, in the South West of the USA.

32
Q

Why does the Colorado River Basin experience water scarcity?

A

Because this area is the driest area in the USA, with the most desert land and fast developing cities are growing e.g. Phoenix in Arizona, Los Angeles in California or Las Vegas in Nevada.

The west USA has 60% of the US land, 40% of its population, but only 25% of it’s annual precipitation.

This being made worse by Climate Change.

33
Q

What is the River Colorado Water Management Scheme?

A

It is a multi-purpose water management scheme, where the Colorado river has been tamed and turned into a gigantic plumbing system which brings water to areas in the Colorado Basin which experience a frequent water deficit, e.g. Phoenix, and meets the industrial, agricultural and domestic needs for water.

It also maintains population and economic growth, while generating electricity at the same time using dams.

34
Q

How is water from the River Colorado being supplied to the people who need it?

A

Dams/reservoirs
These structures such as the Hoover dam retain water in times of water surplus, and release it in time of deficit for irrigation. Water is pumped from the reservoirs such as Lake Mead and distributed to cities.

Canals/aqueducts/pipelines
These are man-made flows of water that divert water from the river colorado to other places to irrigate them and supply drinking water

35
Q

How is drinking water being supplied in Arizona?

A

Water may be pumped out of reservoirs or diverted from the river itself.

The central Arizona Project is a large canal that transports water to cities like Phoenix. 1/10th of the river is diverted and into a pumping station, lifting the water 250 metres up into the hillside, then the water is channeled through artificial waterways to cities in the middle of Arizona

Water travels almost 1000 metres in height throughout its journey, passing by many more pumping stations, via a 540 km Central Arizona Project.

It supplies most of its water to Phoenix which relied on a quickly/deplenishing aquifer.

36
Q

How is water for agriculture and industry being supplied in the Colorado River Basin?

A

Water for Agriculture is being supplied by Dams, which release water into the Colorado River in times of water deficit, and mainly canals such as the All American Canal and the Colorado River Aqueduct supply water by crossing through California.

37
Q

Why is it difficult to meet the demands of all water users in the Colorado River Basin?

A

There is not enough water in the Colorado River Basin to hydrate the growing population. 80% of the Colorado River Basin’s water is used for agriculture, while only 12% is domestic use.

Some treaties decided a century ago when the population distribution in the US still apply, for example California gets 13 times more water than Nevada, but now Nevada has large cities such as Las Vegas. The Colorado Basin states are redistributing water but each state wants more.

38
Q

What problems and conflicts occur relating to water use in the Colorado River Basin?

A

Legal pacts in 1922 and 1944 allocate more water to the states in the river’s upper basin (Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico) and lower basin (Arizona, Nevada and California) and to Mexico, than now flows through the river, even in years without a drought.
This is a problem because cities in the lower basin are growing quickly, and there is some very fertile land there as well that needs water.
Farmers and cities have conflicts over the limited water supply such as the farmers in the Imperial Valley, California.

Because of so many withdrawals of water by canals, reservoirs and aqueducts, the river rarely makes it to the Gulf of California.
Mexico is unhappy as it has lost a significant amount of water, and has to invest in expensive desalination plants such as the one in Yuma.

39
Q

What are the environmental effects of the Colorado River basin Water Management Scheme?

A
  • The Colorado River used to carry about 90 million tonnes of sediment a year down to its mouth. However, the majority of this now gets trapped behind dams, damaging the delta and wetland ecosystem at the river’s mouth.
    Salinity in the lower Colorado has increased changing the ecosystem.
  • The number of fish shrimps and sea mammals have all reduced around the mouth of the river.
  • Evaporation rates have increased behind the river’s many dams. About 15% of water is evaporated.
  • The deep water in the reservoirs behind the dams has reduced the temperature of the river in many areas.
40
Q

What are the Pros and Cons of the Colorado Water Management Scheme?

A

Pros
- Reduces flooding in summer and drought in winter
- Electricity is produced
- Water stored behind dam can be used for agricultural, domestic and industrial purposes
Cons
- Land is lost to flooding when dams are created
- Sediment builds up behind dams, affecting HEP production
- Less sediment in the rivers causes habitat to change for native fish, and sandbanks shrink, affecting land animal habitats as well
- Mexico’s water supply is reduced as water is pumped out before it reaches them

41
Q

Is water use in the Colorado River Basin sustainable and what are the solutions?

A

The use of water is not sustainable, as water levels are already decreasing drastically throughout the rivers and reservoirs because so much water is being pumped out of the river.

Solutions:
- Shift water consumption to desalination
- Water recycling
- Imported water from other states
- Water use quotas

Geography (13 decks)

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