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last exam env sci
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Two biggest concerns about water resources. | water pollution, water accessibility |
| What are the four categories of human impact on water? | changes to earths surface, changes to climate, withdrawals for human use, excess pollution |
| Name 4 important properties of water. | adhesion, cohesion, bipolar, polar |
| Define cohesion | water molecules desire to stick to other water molecules |
| Define adhesion | ability of one substance to cling to another substance |
| What is capillary action? | allow plants to absorb water through their roots and then send the water upwards through their tissues |
| Who are the biggest users of water? | ag and power plants |
| What is non-consumptive water use consumptive water use. | water may be contaminated, but is still available to humans. Used in homes, industries, and electric power production |
| How is water used in the Eastern vs. Western US? | Eastern US - most water is used for energy production, manufacturing, Western US - most water is used for irrigation |
| What is virtual water use? | the amount of water that goes into the manufacturing of a product. |
| What are Blue vs Green vs. Grey water footprints | blue - The amount of surface water and groundwater required o produce an item. green - The amount of rainwater required to make an item grey - The amount of freshwater required to dilute the wastewater generated in manufacturing |
| Be able to describe the hydrological (water) cycle, at least basically. | evaporation, condensation, precipitation, accumulation |
| What drives the hydrological cyce? | gravity and solar energy |
| Define infiltration, interception, surface detention, runoff, overland flow, | interception - rainfall falls on vegetation infiltration - water then seeps into ground surface detention - puddles formed runoff - Most of the water which returns to land flows d |
| What is transpiration or evapotranspiration. | he process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere. Transpiration is essentially evaporation of water from plant leaves |
| Define pollution | an undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of a region’s air, water, soil, waste, or food |
| Two approaches to dealing with pollution | Biodegradable: Broken down by decomposers over the course of time Nonbiodegradable: synthetic and unable to be broken down (at leastover human lifespan. |
| How does the Law of Conservation of Mass relate to Waste? | matter cannot be created, it can only change form • Or be stored indefinitely in its current form (such as a landfill) |
| Define waste stream | Sum of all waste produced by individuals, industries, mining, and agriculture |
| List and define the 5 types of waste and how are each types disposed? | Non-Hazardous Industrial Waste 94% Hazardous Waste 5% 3. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) 1% 4. Medical Waste <.1% 5. Radioactive Waste <.1% |
| What is a pollution haven What is the digital divide? | pollution haven - this term is used to describe the discrepancy between production and disposal locations. We use electronics most in developed countries digital divide - Inability of marginalized people to avoid exposure to e-waste |
| How is Municiple Solid Waste Disposed? | Open Dumps 2. Burial and Landfills 3. Incineration 4. Ocean Dumping 5. Recycling 6. Source reduction (recognized since 1990) |
| What is source reduction? | reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, dispose |
| What is leachate | s considered any liquid polluted by waste. This is often water that has percolated down through landfill, picking up chemicals, substances, or solubles on the waste. |
| What is Superfund, superfund sites? | Superfund – pool of money in part funded with taxpayer dollars – used for rapid containment, cleanup and remediation Superfund Sites: sites around the country (and world) that are now polluted with hazardous material |
| What is a brownfield? | bandoned sites; that may or may not be causing environmental problems or have hazardous materials on them. Most brownfields are just massive eye sores in a community |
| drainage basin | which are the geologic basis of a watershed, are defined as areas of land that are bound by ridges or hills (watershed divides) and creates a basin in which water drains to a common point (lake, a larger river, or the ocean) |
| drainage divide | ridge or high platform, separates two drainage basins |
| What is integrated waste management? | Describes the idealized model for how best to handle waste from an environmental science and economic perspective. The 4 R’s |
| What is a watershed | are interconnected systems of land, water, air the plant and animal species they support (including humans!) |
| • Exorheic vs Endorheic Basins | exoheric = have streamflow originating from these basins that drain to the ocean. endoheric - a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans |
| What are: Local vs regional, vs ultimate baselevel | rivers drain at local base level ultimate base level - sea level |
| What is discharge? | Volume of water |
| What is meteoric water? | from precipitation, snow melt, and groundwater |
| What is the water table | e upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. |
| Define aquifer (confined vs unconfined) | a body of porous rock or sediment saturated with groundwater. Groundwater enters an aquifer as precipitation seeps through the soil, can effectively transmit water |
| Define Aquiclude | Any geological formation that absorbs and holds water but does not transmit it at a sufficient rate to supply springs, cannot transmit water wells |
| define Aquitard | nonporous, low permeability that prevent and restrict water, can transmit water poorly |
| What is channel flow? | SURFACE WATER CONFINED TO A SPECIFIC PATHWAY |
| Laminar flow vs. terminal flow | laminar - WATER FLOW OF AN EXTREMELY GENTLE NATURE AS PARALLEL SHEETS OF MOVING WATER MOLECULES. terminal - or turbulent, DYNAMIC, AGITATED WATER FLOW OF WATER MOLECULES |
| What is meant by the competency of a stream? | measures the largest particles a stream can transport |
| What is meant by the capacity of a stream? | the maximum load it can carry |
| Why study rivers? | For operational management of hydraulic structures, To understand how a river changes seasonally, during floods and during droughts. |
| What river parameters can be measured? | width and depth of a river at various points • the flow (velocity) of a river (how fast does the water flow) • Length of river and vertical extent |
| Define wetted perimeter | the perimeter of the cross sectional area that is "wet".[1] The length of line of the intersection of channel wetted surface with a cross sectional plane normal to the flow direction |
| What is a profile? | OW THE RIVER LOSES ALTITUDE WITH DISTANCE; THE GRADIENT, G, CHANGES |
| What is the “rule” for all river profiles? | IVER PROFILES ARE CONCAVE UPWARD |
| Why is it important to be able to measure stream flow/velocity and Discharge (Q). | we can make a graph from which we can project discharges over time |
| define Vadose or unsaturated zone | is immediately below the land surface, contains water and air in the open spaces, or pores |
| define phreatic or saturated zone | all the pores and rock fractures are filled with water, underlies the unsaturated zone. The top of the saturated zone is called the water table |
| capillary fringe | the layer of soil or sediment above an aquifer's water table where water is held in small pores by capillary action |
| potentiometric surface | Groundwater in a confined aquifer is under pressure and will rise up inside a borehole drilled into the aquifer, The level to which the water rises |
| Perched aquifer. | an aquifer occurring above the regional watertable. Water moves on an impervious layer |
| porosity | a measure of its ability to hold a fluid. |
| permeability. | a measure of the ease of flow of a fluid through a porous solid |
| What is sorting? | escribes how sediments are distributed based on their size |
| What is hydraulic gradient | the slope of the water table or potentiometric surface |
| How is calculating discharge for an aquifer different from a stream? | permeability is measured instead of velocity |
| What is karst? | term used to describe the distinctive surface landscapes of cave country, shaped by dissolution of soluble bedrocks such as limestone, dolomite, or gypsum. |
| What is a conduit vs a cave? | A cave is a humanly enterable void. A conduit is a void that can be as small a 1mm up to sizes that are humanly enterable |
| What is the tragedy of the commons? | refers to a situation in which individuals with access to a shared resource (also called a common) act in their own interest and, in doing so, ultimately deplete the resource |
| List and describe the 4 categories of energy use | Transportation (cars, tractors, planes, trains) 2. Industrial processes (running machinery, heating and cooling industrial/manufacturing equipment) 3. Commercial/residential use 4. Electrical power (energy used to generate electricity) |
| What is a primary vs secondary energy source | A raw fuel used to generate energy vs. Energy that has been converted from one form to another for use by humans |
| In general, how is electrical energy produced? | fuel source (coal, for example) is burned or the natural heat from the source (geothermal energy, for example) is used to boil water to turn a turbine which then generates electricity. |
| What is a megawatt? | enough electricity to power 800-1,000 homes |
| Define baseload | he constant supply of power provided by large power plants |
| define brownouts | result from a deficiency in available power and cause a reduction in voltage |
| define blackouts | a total loss of power A power company must accommodate daily, weekly, and seasonal fluctuations. Blackouts typically occur during peak use |
| What is thermal pollution | waste heat energy discharged into natural waterways |
| What re the 3 types of fossil fuels (list and describe) | Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas |
| How does coal production impact the environment? | Coal combustion is the world’s largest source of CO2 |
| What is surface mining vs underground mining in terms of coal coal? | surface mining is performed when coal is more sparce underground |
| How do we use oil | used to make plastics and other products |
| Define: oil resources | the total amount of oil remaining |
| define undiscovered resources | educated guess on where and how much oil or natural gas there is in the world that we don’t yet know about |
| define proved reserves | an accurate estimate of how much oil can be economically obtained from a field |
| Define production, secondary recovery, fracking | Production: withdrawal (extraction) of oil or gas from the Earth (field) Secondary recovery removes oil by injecting steam or brine into the well Fracking: shale is fractured, releasing trapped gas and oil |
| how does solar power work | olar Troughs: reflect sunlight onto a center pipe filled with liquid 2. Power towers (AKA Solar Furnaces): sun-tracking mirrors focus sunlight onto a receiver with molten salt liquid mounted on a centrally located tower |
| List and describe the renewable energy sources as discussed in lecture. | biomass energy, hydropower, wind, geothermal, solar |
| What is weather vs climate | weather is short term, can change rapidly, difficult to predict while climate is gradual change and long term |
| Define global warming vs climate change | GLOBAL WARMING Is the increase of the Earth’s average surface temperature due to a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere CLIMATE CHANGE Is the long-term changes in climate, including average temperature and precipitation |
| What are the abiotic factors that affect climate? | latitude, altitude, ocean currents, topography, evaporation |
| What are the biotic factors that affect climate | transpiration, respiration, photosynthesis, decomposition, digestion |
| What is the greenhouse effect? | some sunlight that hits the earth is reflected and some becomes heat, co2 and other gases in atmosphere trap heat keeping the earth warm |
| What are the most significant greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and where do they come from? | CO₂ from fossil fuels •CH₄ from agriculture and natural gas infrastructure •N₂O from fertilizers •Industrial fluorinated gases |
| What are teleconnections? | Large-scale changes in the atmospheric wave and jet stream patterns These changes influence temperature, rainfall, storm tracks, and jet stream location/ intensity over vast areas |
| What are the Milankovitch cycles and how do they affect earth’s climate? | These cycles affect the amount of sunlight (energy) that Earth absorbs from the Sun. Provide a strong framework for understanding long-term changes in Earth’s climate |
| What is a proxy and how do we use them to study climate change | are preserved physical characteristics of the environment that can stand in for direct measurements ex, historical data, coral, pollen ice cores, |
| What is phenology? | rough phenology, the study of events in nature. |
| How is climate change affecting the climate in the US? | emperatures are rising, especially in winter. Extreme rainfall and flooding events (24-hr and 7-day) are more frequent. Extreme droughts and massive wildfires are more common |
| what are the layers of the atmosphere (farthest to closest) | thermosphere, mesosphere, stratosphere, troposphere |
| what is important about the troposphere | lowest layer of atmosphere, almost all weather occurs in this layer |
| tropopause | boundary between the top of the troposphere and the stratosphere (the layer above it) |
| what increases greenhouse gases | CO2 from fossil fuels, CH4 methane from ag, |
| what is a result of greenhouse gases | global temp rise, increased frequency of extreme events, melting glaciers |
| the cause of stratospheric ozone depletion | release of CFCs, halons caused from UV radiation breaking them down forming ozone hole |
| what is the effect of the Antarctic ozone hole | increased uv rays causing skin cancer, eye problems, harm to phytoplankton |
| what is acid rain made out of | SO2 and NO2 |
| what is acid rain caused by | power plants, vehicles |
| what are the major air pollutants | nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, particulate matter |
| what causes smog formation | NOx and VOCs and sunlight |
| what are aerosols that humans release | sulfate particles, soot, and dust from ag |
| impacts of aerosols | cools atmosphere by reflecting sunlight back to space, black carbon warms atmosphere which influences cloud formation and rain |
| consumptive water use | the applied water does not return to the water resource. It percolates into the ground or evapotranspires |
| what river parameters can be calculated? | Area and perimeter of the river at specific locations • Hydraulic radius • Volume of water flowing past a particular point. (DISCHARGE). • River gradient |
Created by:
Mckenzie Phelps