Water in Environment Midterm

Some environmental variables control the stomata opening size, hence the degree of transpiration. In the image below, stomata openings in picture A are not as large as the stomata openings in picture B (if you cannot see the image below, this description is sufficient enough to answer the question. You can also find the image in Files > Images, videos for course >week 4 ) . Picture a: lower opening sizes picture b: large opening sizes

Picture A represents environmental conditions where vapor pressure deficits are higher

When calculating discharge from the velocity-area method, it is best and common practice to:

Take velocity measurements at 0.6 of the river depth

Standard evaporation pans are typically within 10% of actual evaporation values for lakes after a standard coefficient is applied. Which of the following is TRUE:

The coefficient is <1 because evaporation pans evaporate more water than typical lakes

Imagine two soil columns partly saturated with water. One is comprised entirely of sand particles and the other is comprised entirely of clay particles. what is true about this?

The column with sand will drain water faster The column with clay has a higher porosity The column with sand has a higher permeability

In some places, human modification can help to recharge groundwater systems. Managed aquifer recharge is:

The induced and purposeful recharge of groundwater

Graphical hydrograph separation is:

The partitioning between stormflow and baseflow

Unsustainable withdrawal of groundwater from the subsurface can lead to subsidence, which is:

The settling or sinking of the Earth's surface because of subsurface compaction

If a first order tributary and a third order tributary come together at a confluence, what stream order is the river immediately downstream of the confluence?

Third order

What does a 'hydrograph' display?

Variations in streamflow over time

What is a rating curve?

a curve that shows the relationship between discharge and water level at a location in a river, usually at a gaging station

Water budgets for quantifying water inputs, outputs, and changes in water storage in watersheds are:

based on the conservation of mass

Does deforestation increase, decrease, or do nothing to localized rainfall in the Amazon? Hint: How does deforestation impact rainfall recycling?

decrease

Streamflow is usually expressed in which of the follow units?

ft3/s

Of the following, which of these reservoirs has the longest residence time: oceans, soil moisture, atmosphere, glaciers, and groundwater?

groundwater

Evaporation can occur when hydrogen bonds between water molecules break. Which of the following is NOT a source of energy to break these bonds:

potential energy

When all pore spaces in the subsurface are filled and the water table is at the ground surface, what happens when new precipitation falls on the ground?

saturation-excess overland flow

Condensation is...

the conversion of water from vapor or gas into a liquid

Which has a wider daily temperature range - the ocean or the land surface?

the land

Convergence of frontal systems can cause precipitation to occur when warm frontal systems hit cold frontal systems. When this happens,

the warm, less dense front is lifted over the cold, denser front.

An energy balance for a lake is calculated. All of the following are outputs of the energy balance, EXCEPT:

water body heat storage

Radiative equilibrium is:

where the incoming energy and the outgoing energy are in balance

A 1 cm3 soil sample is comprised by 0.4 cm3 of particles, 0.25 cm3 of air, and 0.35 cm3 of water. What is the porosity of this soil sample?

0.60

As a percent, how much rainfall that falls in the Amazon is 'recycled'?

30%

Water density depends on temperature. At what temperature is water densest?

4 degrees C

How much, in a percent, of the incoming solar radiation to Earth is absorbed by the surface of Earth?

47%

What percentage of precipitation that falls on Earth's land is lost via evapotranspiration?

66%

The atmospheric reservoir holds a small portion of the total global water and also has a relatively short residence time. Approximately, how long does water usually stay in this reservoir?

8 days

An aquifer is defined as:

A porous formation that contains substantial water to yield significant quantities of water

Where, in terms of latitude, do most of Earth's large deserts exist?

Around 30 degrees north or south

Once water infiltrates into the ground, it can have many different fates. Which of the following is NOT one of the major paths for water that has infiltrated into the soil?

Condense into snow

loam

Given the above image of the soil texture triangle (also on page 218 of your hydrology textbook), what do you call a soil that has 50% sand, 10% clay, and 40% silt?

Roughly 96% of the total global water is comprised by the oceans, while 2.5% is comprised by freshwater. This freshwater reservoir is made up of three primary components - which component comprises the most of the total global freshwater reservoir?

Glaciers and ice caps

Why is the Strahler stream order classification potentially difficult to use to inform policy and protections over surface water bodies?

Headwater streams can dry down across the year, especially in summer when surveys are often done, making it difficult to classify them by stream order

Large-scale horizontal convergence, covered in the assigned reading in the textbook, but not in the recorded lecture #1. However, this concept will appear in lecture #4, so it is important to understand this process. What weather feature is an example of what can result from this precipitation forming process?

Hurricanes

Where does the majority of Earth's energy come from?

Incoming solar radiation from the sun

What is the zone of atmospheric convergence around the equator called?

Intertropical convergence zone

Why does a capillary fringe form right above the water table?

It occurs due to adhesion between the polar water molecule and the surfaces of the solids

The subsurface material in the previous question had a homogeneous hydraulic conductivity of 12 m/d. If the material was suddenly replaced with material that had a hydraulic conductivity of 30 m/d, what would happen to groundwater flow?

It would move faster

The intensity of the sun's rays do not fall uniformly across Earth's surface. This is driven, in large part, by:

Latitude and season

Albedo is the reflectivity of a surface. This determines how much solar radiation is reflected versus absorbed. Different land uses and land covers have albedo between 0 and 1. What might happen to the energy balance if global snow cover dramatically decreases due to climate change?

Less snow means Earth's average albedo will decrease, which means more solar energy will be absorbed

Atmospheric circulation is, in large part, driven by the under heating near poles and the overheating at the equator. Which of the following statements is correct.

Low pressure zones are caused by rising air, high pressure zones are caused by sinking air