Urban Water Sustainability Final Exam Prep
David Sedlak argues that the prevalence of manmade chemicals in waterways means we need to carefully revaluate what common practice in wastewater management?
Discharging treated wastewater to rivers and drinking water supplies
During the Millennium Drought how much did per-capita water use decline?
50%
The ratio of LIDI to LIDH necessary to return a catchment to its pre-urban state depends on only two variables. What are these variables?
MAR and the pre-urban fraction of forest
Which of the following accurately characterizes the evolution of formal drainage in cities?
1) Sewers started out as simple drainage ditches that moved flood water out of cities, 2) Sewers became repositories for a combination of human waste and flood water, 3) Combined sewers fell into disfavor with growing cities preferring separate sewer systems, and 4) low impact development begins to become a part of the strategy for managing both combined and separate sewer systems
What are two reasons that communities might move between alternative stable states?
1) changes in environmental parameters that determine the ways in which state variables interact or 2) direct perturbations to state variables
What is an alternate stable state?
A different attractor in the stability landscape (ball and cup diagram) All of these A new attractor that appears in response to an environmental perturbation A different equilibrium point that is locally stable
In Ancient Rome, the Cloaca Maxima was:
A large sewer in Rome that discharged into the Tiber river
The major limiting nutrient for vegetation in the Central Mayan Lowlands was phosphorus. What role did the old growth forest canopy play in phosphorus availability?
A reinforcing feedback exists between the presence of old growth forest and soil phosphorus levels, with phosphorus increasing growth of the forest canopy and the forest canopy increasing the capture of phosphorus.
Look at the Figure above. Which of the following correctly matches water security classifications to their appropriate quadrant?
A) High water security, B) low water security, C) high water security but challenging, D) very low water security
Which of the following are true statements about the Millennium Drought?
All of the above It provided a window of opportunity for policy change in water management in Melbourne It was a 12 year long (1997-2009) period of low rainfall in Southeast Australia that caused reservoir storage volumes to fall to historic lows Its impacts in Australia were felt across ecosystems, agriculture, the economy and society
Why aren't water conservation programs typically adopted as the primary response to droughts?
All of the above Public behavior and acceptance of conservation goals is often uncertain Cognitive lock-in results in traditional, centralized, engineered solutions to urban water problems being preferred The security provided by traditional engineering solutions can be necessary in order for risky, but potentially rewarding, approaches like conservation to be pursued.
The policy response to fish contamination has typically been one of risk avoidance. Why might this constitute an environmental justice problem?
All of these Because risk avoidance policies assume fish consumption is optional when in actuality subsistence fishermen in low income communities may not be able to afford to stop consuming contaminated fish because they have no viable alternate protein source. Because risk avoidance policies allocate the responsibility for addressing risks to those that bear them rather than companies that cause them, and these companies are often located in low income neighborhoods due to legacies of discrimination in land use planning Because risk avoidance policies place the burden of understanding fishing advisories on the public. These advisories may not be easy to understand or language appropriate, making it difficult for immigrant communities to regulate risk.
Which of the following are ways in which storm flows in cities with combined sewers have been managed?
All of these Flows exceeding sewage treatment plant capacity are allowed to bypass the plant and are discharged directly to urban waterbodies Flows are reduced (or delayed) using green roofs and bioretention that store water in soils Flows are reduced (delayed) by holding back wastewater in sewer lines upstream of the plant or storing it temporarily in massive underground tunnels
Why might water-related risks be enhanced in urban areas?
All of these Large urban areas are typically incapable of meeting their water supply from within the urban area, which requires supplying water from outside (coined the reach of urban water infrastructure) Urban areas depend on water resources elsewhere for producing the food consumed by urban citizens (coined the external water footprint of urban consumption) The high density of people and economic activities in urban areas concentrates risk
Which of the following is a true statement?
All of these The temporal dimension of urban water security is often overlooked in water security indices While many water security indices exist, only a handful focus specifically on urban water security Water security indices tend to have issues with data availability and data quality
In Ancient Roman cities, the tank where water entered the city from an aqueduct was called the castellum divisorium. What purpose did this tank serve?
Allocating water to high priority uses during drought
Which of the following are true of reinforcing feedback loops?
An increase (decrease) in variable A results in an increase (decrease) in variable B which in turn results in an increase (decrease) in variable A
In 1977 the Environmental Protection Agency set an initial standard for trihalomethanes in drinking water of 100ug/L. Where did this standard have to be met?
At consumer water taps
Why might urban water managers be interested in the potential for hysteresis?
Because hysteresis implies that communities or the ecosystems they rely on for water-related services might be pushed into undesirable configurations from which it would be difficult for them to recover and the management actions necessary to induce recovery are unknown.
In Rebecca Brown's transition theory for urban water systems the transition between cities with primarily centralized water infrastructure and cities with a combination of centralized and decentralized infrastructure occurs between what two city topologies?
Between Drained cities and Waterways cities
Slow sand filters were the first modern water treatment technology that effectively removed Salmonella typhi (the bacterial pathogen responsible for typhoid fever) from drinking water. These bacteria were removed by what component of the slow sand filter?
Biofilms growing on the filter media
Which of the following is NOT a true statement about urban stream recovery in catchments where LID has been implemented widely? (think about what has NOT been observed in large-scale catchment studies evaluating the effectiveness of LID interventions)
Catchment-wide LID retrofits have been shown to improve stream ecology
Which of the following is a relatively cheap way to inactivate estradiol during wastewater treatment and prevent feminization of fish?
Chlorination
What disinfectant was also used as a chemical weapon during the early part of World War I?
Chlorine
Which of the following is a disinfection byproduct of drinking water chlorination?
Chloroform
What three pillars of practice characterize the Water Sensitive City?
Cities as water supply catchments, cities providing ecosystem services, cities comprising water sensitive communities
What law had the greatest impact on sewage treatment, establishing generous grants and loans that ensured almost every city built a sewage treatment plant equipped with both primary and secondary treatment?
Clean Water Act
Which of the following is a true statement about cognitive lock-in?
Cognitive lock-in is a form of path dependence that can arise from positive feedbacks between societal perception, management, and the physical and biological condition of a stream
What is meant by cumulative impacts from an environmental justice standpoint?
Cumulative impacts are the combined effects of multiple pollutants from multiple sources on public health
What is the difference between demand-side and supply-side measures for combating water scarcity?
Demand-side measures focus on reducing water use whereas supply-side measures focus on making more water available
What are the five different perspectives (lenses) through which urban water security is typically viewed?
Disciplinary perspectives, problem-oriented perspectives, goal-oriented perspectives, perspectives on type of integration, perspectives on substance or process
In his book Water 4.0, David Sedlak defines Water 3.1 as:
Drinking water plant upgrades necessary to reduce concentrations of carcinogenic compounds in drinking water
Which of the following is a true statement?
Environmental justice analysis has rarely been applied to water problems
What group of chemicals has been linked to the feminization of fish?
Estrogenic hormones
Which of the following is the most comprehensive list of reference modes (modes of dynamic behavior) that can occur when there is at least 1 reinforcing feedback loop that characterizes a system?
Exponential growth, S-shaped growth, and Oscillating overshoot
What do Turner and Sabloff argue is a foundation for sustainability science?
General processes interact equally with context-specific processes to determine the response of human-environment systems to perturbations.
What four alternate water sources (i.e., not potable water) did Melbourne make use of during the Millennium Drought to combat water scarcity?
Greywater, stormwater, recycled water, and rainwater
Which of the following is a true statement about groundwater regulation in the US?
Groundwater regulation is an environmental justice problem because over 43 million people (mostly in rural areas where poverty rates are 30-40% higher) rely exclusively on groundwater from private domestic wells for drinking
The Ancient Romans used lead piping in their water supply system. Indeed, the chemical abbreviation for lead (Pb) comes from the Roman word Plumbum, or "plumbing". Normally lead pipes are a potential health hazard, but there was something special about the sources of water around Rome that protected the city's water supply from serious lead contamination. What was this special feature?
High concentrations of calcium
Which of the following is a true statement about infiltrative, harvest-based, or hybrid LID technologies?
Hybrid LID technologies like dry bioswales both infiltrate and harvest stormwater
Which of the following statements is true?
Hydro-social contracts are physically represented through water systems infrastructure Hydro-social contracts are expressed through institutional arrangements and regulatory frameworks Hydro-social contracts are shaped by dominant cultural perspectives and historic urban water values All of these
What chemical is responsible for the majority of the smell in sewage?
Hydrogen sulfide
Which of the following are major hydrologic drivers of the urban stream syndrome?
Imperviousness, formal drainage, stream modification, imported water
What kind of feedback is represented by the pressure-state-impact-response scheme for urban water systems?
Impossible to determine (it could be balancing or reinforcing)
What do Turner and Sabloff believe is the primary reason that the Mayan civilization never repopulated the central lowlands?
Trade routes changed from overland to aquatic, and thus there was no economic incentive to return to the central lowlands
Which of the following is true?
In areas where urbanization requires increased water imports, dry weather streamflow may actually increase with increasing urbanization All of these During wet weather the volume of stormwater delivered to a stream typically increases in urbanized catchments whereas during dry weather streamflow typically decreases in urbanized catchments due to long-term decreases in infiltration Effective imperviousness represents the impervious fraction of the catchment area that is hydraulically connected to a stream through a formal drainage system
Which of the following best describes the collection of factors contributing to the collapse of the Maya at the end of the Classic period?
Increased climate aridity, deforestation and reduced phosphorus capture, loss of habitat for food species (animal protein), soil erosion, changes in trade, and collapse of governance structures
The authors argue that from an environmental justice standpoint the federal governments first step to combat climate change should be mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. However, they note that certain kinds of mitigation projects may exacerbate environmental justice problems. Which of the following are examples of mitigation projects that could be problematic from an environmental justice standpoint?
Increased damming of rivers to generate clean energy via hydropower Expansion of carbon trading markets allowing some companies to pay to pollute more and others to be paid for polluting less All of these Large scale ethanol production for biofuel that will reduce fossil fuel dependence
In the U.S., treating drinking water using sand filters not only dramatically reduced the incidence of typhoid fever and cholera, it also:
Increased the average lifespan of citizens.
What key feature necessary to achieve the water sensitive city is only now being recognized as important?
Institutional capacity (the ability of governments and communities to plan and manage efficiently and effectively)
Which of the following is the correct order for the evolution of terms used to describe urban water management concepts over time?
Integrated water resources management, Sustainable water resources management, Water security, Adaptive management
Which of the following are characteristic of closed-loop or non-linear causal thinking?
It facilitates consideration of the feedback loops and interconnections that characterize a systems structure
In the late 1800s many inland cities in the U.S. began to discharge their raw sewage into a nearby stream. It was thought that this would not pose a health threat to downstream communities that used the stream for a water source because:
It was thought that the river would remove the sewage by "self purification".
Which of the following did Hoekstra list as an example of a Very Low Water Security city?
Jakarta
In addition to protecting people from disease causing pathogens, chlorine also offers some protection against what other pollutant in drinking water:
Lead
What four systems archetypes does Mirchi say often characterize water resource management problems?
Limits to growth, success to the successful, fixes that backfire, and tragedy of the commons
Which of the following are examples of water injustices within federal water policy?
Low income communities and communities of color are disproportionately burdened by legacy discrimination in land use planning, resulting in their co-location with industry, toxic facilities, and landfills Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately burdened by higher exposure to contaminated drinking water and animal protein (particularly fish) Low income communities and communities of color are disproportionately burdened by lack of access to adequate infrastructure for potable water delivery and waste disposal All of these
Which of the following would NOT be expected improve the capacity of federal water policy to meet environmental justice concerns?
Maintain or increase local match requirements for small water systems grants to ensure local authorities are invested in any proposed infrastructure reforms
What does the acronym MAR stand for?
Mean Annual Rainfall
Which of the following is a true statement about achieving pre-urban water balance in urban catchments?
Most urban catchments need to harvest more water than they infiltrate to achieve a pre-urban water balance
Which of the following statements is true?
No city anywhere can currently be classified as a water sensitive city
What are the three main principals of environmental justice?
No community should bear a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards, all communities should have access to environmental benefits, and decision-making processes need to be transparent and include community voices
What practice does David Sedlak suggest implementing in drinking water treatment plants to guard against the transformation of manmade chemicals into toxic byproducts during disinfection?
Ozone followed by Granular Activated Carbon
Trickling filters were an effective way of oxidizing contaminants in sewage because they had:
Partially saturated gravel media
Which of the following definition of potable substitution is correct?
Potable substitution occurs when lower quality water is used instead of potable water when potability is not required, reducing pressure on the potable supply
Which of the following is NOT true about the climate of the central Mayan lowlands during the Classic period?
Precipitation was low, but distributed evenly throughout the year
The removal of fine particles and bacteria from drinking water by rapid sand filtration was made possible by what technical innovation?
Preflocculation with alum.
In his book Water 4.0, David Sedlak defines Water 3.0 as:
Primary and secondary treatment of sewage
What stage of sewage treatment is the Imhoff tank associated with?
Primary treatment
Where did the low impact development movement first develop in the United States?
Prince George County, Maryland
Look at Fig. 3 above. Assuming we live in a catchment with a LIDI:LIDH ratio of 30%, where on the ternary diagram do we need to be for that catchment to be at pre-urban state?
Region A
Most of Melbourne's potable supply comes from what major source?
Reservoirs located in forested catchments beyond city limits
Select the set of socio-political drivers and service delivery functions that characterize a water sensitive city
Resilience to climate change and urban design reinforcing water sensitive behaviors
Which of the following is a true statement about resilient cities?
Resilient cities are robust to disturbance and use disturbance as an opportunity to adapt and explore new opportunities
What kinds of household water savings technologies were rebates available for?
Showerheads, toilets, and washing machines
What two cities do Wong and Brown showcase as being well along the path towards the Water Sensitive City
Singapore and Melbourne
Which of the following is a true statement about the collapse and depopulation of the Central Mayan Lowlands?
Socio-economic factors were as important if not more so than environmental factors Lack of access to water was a necessary but not sufficient condition to cause collapse Interactions among human and environmental subsystems reached tipping points that triggered systemwide collapse and reconfiguration All of the above
Which of the following are major categories of symptoms of the urban stream syndrome?
Stream morphology, water quality, ecology, and flow
What was the first method for quantifying the impacts of sewage on dissolved oxygen in rivers?
Streeter-Phelps model
Which of the following is a practice that the Maya used to try and manage the impacts of their cities, agricultural practices, or population growth on the local environment?
Terraced agriculture, which reduced soil and nutrient loss
In what regions of the United States are combined sewers most prevalent?
The East coast and Great lakes
What is the difference between integrated-water and water-integrated perspectives?
The Integrated-water perspective focuses on considering all aspects of water together whereas the water-integrated perspective focuses on studying water (and water security) in relation to other sectors (energy, food, etc)
How were Melbourne's tiered water restrictions different from the Target 155 campaign?
The Target 155 campaign encouraged Melbournians to meet a fixed voluntary water use target of 155 L/p/d whereas Melbourne's tiered water restrictions set limits on outdoor water use that became more severe as reservoir storage volumes fell.
When Turner and Sabloff talk about the Classic period "collapse", what are they referring to?
The abandonment of large cities, water systems and managed landscapes during the Terminal Classic Period, with population declines approaching 90%
Which of the following is a true statement about federal water subsidies for agriculture?
The federal government spends billions on water, energy, and crop subsidies for agriculture but does not authorize enough money to help small drinking water systems in agricultural areas upgrade their infrastructure to comply with the safe drinking water act.
After the Maya left the central lowlands the forest recovered, but was never exactly the same as it was in the Classical period. How was the "recovered" forest ecosystem different than the forest ecosystem in the Classical period?
The recovered forest included more economically useful plant species
What is the definition of a hydro-social contract?
The values and agreements between communities governments and business on how water should be managed
What evidence do we have that the Mayan lowland landscape was under stress in the Classic period?
There were increases in disturbance indicators like maize and invasive fern spores and decreases in tree pollen caused by deforestation
Which of the following is a true statement about combined sewer overflow events?
They occur primarily during storms when stormwater runoff enters the sewer, dilutes sewage and increases overall volume. Any volume in excess of sewer overflow structures is discharged directly to streams or other waterbodies as combined sewer overflow water
Why were Melbourne's farmers reluctant to rely on recycled water as the major water source for irrigating crops?
They were concerned that undiluted recycled water (which has elevated salinity) was bad for crops.
Which of the following is NOT true about the systems archetype "Tragedy of the Commons"?
This archetype is observed when multiple users exploit a shared water resource and more successful individuals deprive weaker competitors of the water they need
Which of the following is true about resilience?
Two features of basins of attraction that contribute to resilience are the slope of the sides (engineering resilience) and the area of the basin (ecological resilience) All of these No change in overall system resilience is possible without modifying model parameters (the stability landscape) All of these except "no change in overall system resilience is possible without modifying model parameters (the stability landscape)" In the ecosystem framework resilience is a dynamic property of the stability landscape whereas in the community framework resilience is a static property of different basins of attraction
Which of the following is a true statement?
Wastewater includes two types of manmade chemicals, those that are readily degraded by microbial processes (90-99% removal anticipated) and those that resist degradation
In his book Water 4.0, David Sedlak defines Water 2.0 as:
Water Filtration and Chlorination
What three topics are considered under "state of the water system" in pressure-state-impact-response schemes?
Water quality, Water quantity, and Water infrastructure
Which of the following is a true statement about water service affordability?
Water service affordability should account for both the economic burden of a water bill on a household and the burden of displacing other essential services in order to pay for water
Select the set of socio-political drivers and service delivery functions that characterize a water supply city:
Water supply access and security and supply hydraulics
Most studies of water security have one of four major research foci. What are these foci?
Welfare focus, Equity focus, Sustainability focus, Risk focus
What is the definition of hysteresis?
When a parameter perturbation induces changes in the stability landscape that force communities to move to another stable state but an equal and opposite perturbation that changes the landscape back does not return the community to its original state
Who is credited with being the "Father of Public Health"?
William Sedgwick
