Water Flashcards
What is a store?
Reservoir where water is stored.
What is the cryosphere?
Areas of earth where water is frozen into snow or ice.
What is the systems approach?
These study hydrological phenomena by looking at the balance of inputs and outputs and how water is moved between stores and flows.
What is an open system?
Received inputs from and transfers outputs of energy to other systems
What is a closed system?
There is a fixed amount of water on Earth and atmosphere system. No external inputs or outputs - H20 is constant
What is blue water?
Water stored in rivers, streams, lakes and groundwater in liquid form
What is green water?
Water stored in soil and vegetation.
What 2 types of water are classed as non renewable?
Fossil water
Cryosphere losses
What is fossil water?
Untapped ancient stores of water that exist in the polar regions and below deserts in the form of aquifers
Eg Kenya’s Lotikipi Aquifer contains 200 bb km3 of freshwater
What is cryosphere losses?
Major ice sheets store water for very long periods eg Antarctica
Largely locked up in snowflakes, ice sheets, glaciers, water supply is inaccessible to humans.
What 2 processes drive the hydrological cycle?
Solar Energy
GPE
Describe polar hydrology?
Freeze thaw / seasonal changes / differences
Winter snow Insulates the ground
Permafrost creates impermeable surfaces
Frozen lakes and rivers
Limited vegetation
Annual precipitation less than 200mm
Describe tropical rainforest hydrology?
Few seasonal differences
Dense vegetation consumes 75% of precipitation.
Limited surface water infiltration.
Rainforests are cloud factories
Annual precio is over 2000mm
What are the 3 conditions for rainfall?
Air that is cooled to saturation point with a humidity of 100%
Condensation nuclei, such as dust particles to facilitate growth of water droplets in clouds.
A temperature below dew point (the temp at which dew forms)
Describe how frontal rainfall forms?
As air rises it cools and it’s ability to hold water vapour decreases.
This happens when warm lighter air is forced to rise over cold, dense air
Condensation occurs and clouds and rain form.
Describe the process of the formation of conventional rainfall?
If land becomes hot the air above it becomes warmer and expands and rises.
As it rises the air cools and its ability to hold water vapour decreases.
Condensation occurs and clouds develop.
If air continues to rise; the rain will fall.
Describe the formation of orographic rainfall?
When air is forced to rise over a barrier (eg a Mountain) it cools and condenses.
As the cloud forms, precipitation occurs
The leeward (downward) slope receives little rain, this is known as the rain shadow effect.
What is infiltration?
The process by which water is absorbed by the soil, can be impacted by the soil type and slope angle
What is interception?
The process by which water is stored in vegetation. 3 types = interception loss (retained by plants)
Through fall = water drops from leaves
Stem Flow = water trickles along branches and stems
What’s te the 3 outputs to the hydrological cycle?
Evaporation
Transpiration
Channel flow - water travelling in river channels
What factors affect evaporation / transpiration?
Hours of sunlight
Temperature
Humidity
Wind speed
Size and depth of water
Vegetation cover
Surface colour.
How does temperature affect evaporation / transpiration?
As temperature increases, the rate of evapotranspiration also increases
This is because the stomata activities that take place in the plant vary with temp. When temperatures are high, evaporation increases because there is a higher amount of energy available to convert liquid water into water vapour. At higher temperatures stomata open and release more water vapour into the atmosphere.
How does wind speed affect transpiration / evaporation?
Higher wind speed = increases rate of evaporation and transpiration.
Air is moving faster which means that more water vapour can be taken up. Also at higher wind speeds, areas of humidity around the plant are pushed away faster, meaning that humidity cannot slow transpiration.
What is a drainage basin?
Area of land drained by a river and its tributaries .
