Water Cycle And Water Insecurity

Question 1

What is a System?

Answer 1

A system is something made of different components that work together in an interconnected way to perform some function.

Earth is a closed system.

Question 2

Describe Earth and it’s System

Answer 2

A closed system where only energy can pass into and exit the system.

No water is added or lost to the system.

Question 3

Describe a Store

Answer 3

Places where water is held.

Question 4

Describe Flows and Flux

Answer 4

Flows: a process that moves water from one store to another (e.g evaporation)

Flux: we can call a flow a flux if we know the quantity (e.g 160,000 tonnes of water evaporated a year)

Question 5

Where is water distributed on Earth?

Answer 5

Oceans: 96.5%
Glaciers and Ice caps: 68.7%
Ground-water: 30.1%

(main three)

Question 6

What is a cryosphere?

Answer 6

Is the frozen water part of the Earth system.

(Permafrost, snow, Ice caps)

Question 7

What is permafrost?

Answer 7

Frozen ground.

Question 8

What are proportional flow lines?

Answer 8

The bigger the arrow the bigger the flow.

(On a diagram of the arrow after cycle)

Question 9

What are residency times?

Answer 9

The average amount of time water is stored in a place.

The longest residency times found in ice caps, glaciers, permafrost.

Shortest residency times in biospheric water.

Longer periods are more vulnerable to pollution.

Question 10

What does renewable mean?

Answer 10

A water resource is renewable if it is consistently being replenished and isn’t over extracted. No depletion.

Question 11

Are water supplies non-renewable?

Answer 11

Some stores like water from snow/ice can be seen as non-renewable.

As the store melts as cryospheric losses the source of water disappears too.

This is the case in fossil aquifers where over abstraction outweighs any replenishment.

Question 12

An example of a fossil aquifer.

Answer 12

Ogollala Aquifer

Question 13

A drainage basin..

Answer 13

*Is an area of land being drained by a particular river system.

*It looks at a hydrological system at a smaller, regional scale.

Question 14

What is a watershed?

Answer 14

The boundary that separates one drainage basin from another.

Question 15

Largest and smallest drainage basin’s.

Answer 15

Amazon= Largest
Indonesia, Tamborasi River= Smallest

Question 16

What makes one drainage basin different to another?

Answer 16

Climate= precipitation, evaporation, vegetation.

Soils= affect infiltration and percolation.

Relief= rainfall, overland flow.

Vegetation= evapotranspiration

Geology= permeability.

Humans.

Question 17

Main input in a drainage system is precipitation.

Answer 17

Form: snow, rain, hail.
Amount: total over a year.
Intensity: short sharp bursts, drizzly. (Effects infiltration)
Seasonality: is there a wet/dry season
Distribution: particularly for large drainage basins.

Question 18

3 main causes of precipitation

Answer 18

Orographic Rainfall
Conventional Rainfall
Frontal Rainfall

Question 19

What is orographic rainfall?

Answer 19

Caused by the relief of the land forcing water vapour to rise and cool.

Question 20

What is convectional rainfall?

Answer 20

Caused by the heating of the Earth’s surface leading to more buoyant parcels of humid air rising.

Causes Flashy HYDROGRAPHS

Question 21

What is frontal rainfall?

Answer 21

Caused by the warmer air masses rising above denser, colder air masses.

Causes a flat HYDROPGRAPH

Question 22

What is a monsoon climate?

Answer 22

Very wet climate and happen when their is a difference between temperature on land and in the sea.

Can affect precipitation.

Question 23

What is continentality?

Answer 23

How far inland you are/how far from the sea.

Affect precipitation.

Question 24

How can humans disrupt the flows and stores within a drainage basin?

Answer 24

Hydroelectric station, over-abstraction, deforestation, arable farming, pasture farming, urbanisation, climate change, reservoirs.

Question 25

What is a hydroelectric station?

Answer 25

A station that consists of turbines that rely on a gravity flow of water from the dam to turn the turbine and generate electricity.

Question 26

Over Abstraction

Answer 26

Water taken from aquifers causing groundwater level to fall. Amount of water taken is greater than is replenished.

Question 27

How does arable farming disrupt the stores in a drainage basin?

Answer 27

Increases flooding when crops are harvested as the soil is left bare afterwards and therefore reduces interception.

Question 28

What is a river regime?

Answer 28

The difference in the discharge of the river throughout the year.