CEE 4394 Urban Water Sustainability - Final Exam Quiz Questions
Who is credited with being the "Father of Public Health"?
William Sedgwick
What is meant by xeriscaping?
Xeriscaping is the practice of establishing plants that are appropriate for the local climate
In the Payne et al., manuscript were the plant traits correlated with nitrogen removal typically the same traits that were correlated with water loss?
Yes
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
The second ever sustained potable water reuse project occurred in Northern Virginia in the early 70's. Which of the following is a true statement about that project?
11 small sewage treatment plants were consolidated into a single high-tech treatment plant that purposefully discharged highly treated effluent into the local drinking water reservoir
How much is it expected to cost per year over the next several decades to meet future infrastructure needs for water if water infrastructure remains largely centralized?
180 billion dollars/y
Which of the following is a true statement about why Di Baldassarre's approach to human-flood interactions is novel?
In hydrology, humans are typically considered boundary conditions in models and the kinds of reciprocal feedbacks between humans and flooding modeled by Di Baldassarre are not considered
Under the best case scenario, David Sedlak estimates that indoor and outdoor water conservation programs in residential, industrial, and commercial properties could reduce an average US cities overall potable water use by what amount?
30%
Look at the diagram above. Which of the following nodes has the highest betweenness centrality? (because of how simple this network is you do not need to employ any formulas to answer this question...just think about the definition of betweenness centrality)
4
Look at the diagram above. Which of the following nodes has the highest degree centrality?
5
On average, household water bills across the US increase by what percent each year?
5%
During the Millennium Drought how much did per-capita water use decline?
50%
Look at the table above. What is the probability that average cycling speed will be high given that bike tires are fully inflated but the bike chain is rusty?
50%
Which of the following is a true statement? (Levees)
All of these When levees are very expensive they may never get built When levees are very expensive societies are more likely to experience more (but less catastrophic) floods When levees are inexpensive but poor quality societies are more likely to vary their distance from the river (i.e., oscillate back and forth over time) All of these
Under the best case scenario, David Sedlak estimates that 1) indoor and outdoor water conservation programs in residential, industrial, and commercial properties, and 2) distributed technologies for wastewater reuse could reduce an average US cities overall potable water use by what amount?
75%
Which of the following is a true statement about building risk awareness after floods?
90% of risk awareness is built immediately after flood events
Which of the following are technological innovations intended to reduce the negative impacts of desalination on the environment?
A and B A) Jet nozzles on outlet pipes designed to mix reject water rapidly into surrounding ocean water B) Velocity caps to reduce fish impingement
What is a conditional probability?
A conditional probability is where the probability distribution of one variable depends on the state of a second variable P(V1|V2)
In Ancient Rome, the Cloaca Maxima was:
A large sewer in Rome that discharged into the Tiber river
Which of the following is a true statement about network structure?
A network that has many cycles is not tree-like
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
Look at the figure above. Which of the following correctly classifies each green infrastructure archetype based on impact and capacity for adaptation?
A) Lone Ranger, B) Situated GI, C) The Collective, and D) Specialized
Look at the figure above. Which of the following correctly classifies each green infrastructure archetype based on participation/inclusiveness and versatility?
A) Lone Ranger, B) Specialized, C) Situated GI, and D) The Collective
Look at the figure above. Which of the following correctly classifies each green infrastructure archetype based on connectivity and centrality?
A) Situated GI, B) The Collective, C) Lone Ranger, and D) Specialized
Which of the following show promise as distributed technologies for water reuse at the household or apartment scale and do NOT require separation of waste streams?
A) and B) A) Membrane bioreactors B) Modified septic systems with advanced water treatment technologies and additional water storage capacity installed prior to the leachfield
Created greenspace is considered an example of an intensively managed environment, which places constraints on what can be counted as FEGS. Which of the following would count as FEGS from created greenspace?
A) and D) A) An agricultural viewscape for experiencers and viewers D) Birdsong on a golf course for experiencers and viewers
Which of the following are NOT examples of FEGS?
A) and E) A) A city planter box planted with tulips for experiencers and viewers E) Carbon sequestration and biodiversity for artists
What is adaptive governance?
Adaptive governance is a form of flexible, decentralized decision making whereby governance structures change in respond to changing circumstances
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 All of the above
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. All of the above
Which of the following is a true statement about the collapse and depopulation of the Central Mayan Lowlands?
All of the above Socio-economic factors were as important if not more so than environmental factors Interactions among human and environmental subsystems reached tipping points that triggered systemwide collapse and reconfiguration Lack of access to water was a necessary but not sufficient condition to cause collapse All of the above
What is an alternate stable state?
All of these A different attractor in the stability landscape (ball and cup diagram) A new attractor that appears in response to an environmental perturbation A different equilibrium point that is locally stable All of these
Which of the following aspects of ecosystem services do the authors argue are influenced by technological context?
All of these Accessibility of ecosystem services Demand for ecosystem services Generation of ecosystem services All of these
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 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. 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 All of these
Which of the following is a true statement about the infrastructure investment that will be required to maintain/upgrade existing water infrastructure over the next several decades?
All of these Cities and utilities only take in 80-90% of the funds necessary to repair water and sewer pipes and maintain treatment plants, creating a funding gap that has been difficult to close In the absence of increased federal funding, a typical water and wastewater bill must increase by at least 18 dollars a month over the next two decades to cover anticipated costs of maintenance/repair The impending costs of maintaining our existing water systems may incentivize investment in the fourth water revolution (Water 4.0) All of these
Which of the following are ways in which storm flows in cities with combined sewers have been managed?
All of these Flows are reduced (or delayed) using green roofs and bioretention that store water in soils Flows exceeding sewage treatment plant capacity are allowed to bypass the plant and are discharged directly to urban waterbodies Flows are reduced (delayed) by holding back wastewater in sewer lines upstream of the plant or storing it temporarily in massive underground tunnels All of these
Which of the following statements is true? (Hydro-social contracts)
All of these Hydro-social contracts are physically represented through water systems infrastructure Hydro-social contracts are shaped by dominant cultural perspectives and historic urban water values Hydro-social contracts are expressed through institutional arrangements and regulatory frameworks All of these
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 is true? (Urbanization)
All of these In areas where urbanization requires increased water imports, dry weather streamflow may actually increase with increasing urbanization Effective imperviousness represents the impervious fraction of the catchment area that is hydraulically connected to a stream through a formal drainage system 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 All of these
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?
All of these Increased damming of rivers to generate clean energy via hydropower Large scale ethanol production for biofuel that will reduce fossil fuel dependence Expansion of carbon trading markets allowing some companies to pay to pollute more and others to be paid for polluting less All of these
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 All of these
Which of the following are examples of water injustices within federal water policy?
All of these Low income communities and communities of color are disproportionately burdened by lack of access to adequate infrastructure for potable water delivery and waste disposal 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) All of these
Which of the following are examples of the difficulties wastewater recycling projects faced in the early 90's?
All of these Politicians used toilet-to-tap as an environmental justice platform to bolster their political campaigns arguing that low income communities would be forced to drink toilet water while other communities had access to tap water Miller Brewing company coined the term toilet-to-tap to protest a new spreading basin that would introduce treated effluent into the groundwater aquifer they used to brew beer, dramatically reducing support for the project Citizens were uncomfortable with wastewater utilities managing their drinking water and assumed the involvement of those utilities was driven by a desire to dispose of wastewater not to further the development of resilient drinking water supplies All of these
Which of the following is a true statement about multi-effect desalination?
All of these Steam is passed through a series of chambers each of which is kept at a slightly lower pressure. After about 12 chambers the water that condenses is fresh The technology was first used to supply fresh drinking water to a Dutch colony on the Caribbean island of Curacao in 1928 The technology conferred energy improvements over steam distillation but was still 10-15x less energy efficient than importing water long distances (for instance from Northern to Southern California) All of these
Look at the BBN above. Which of the following is a true statement about one of the marginal probability distributions included in this model?
All of these The probability of arriving late at your appointment is lower than the probability of arriving on time The probability that average cycling speed is high exceeds the probability that average cycling speed is low or zero The probability that the bike chain is broken is only 1% All of these
Which of the following is a true statement? (Water security)
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 All of these
Which of the following does David Sedlak argue will regulate the rate at which centralized systems will evolve into hybrids of centralized and decentralized water systems as we transition to Water 4.0?
All of these The willingness of the public to accept a new approach for urban water The ability of locally-available supply options to meet potable water needs The rate at which the cost of key distributed technologies declines All of these
Which of the following reasons does Jackson argue makes networks (social, economic, or other forms) important?
All of these They play a central role in the transformation of information and commodities They can be used to understand how infectious diseases will spread Their structure has implications for our behavior, professional success, and educational achievement All of these
Which of the following is true about resilience?
All of these 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) 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 No change in overall system resilience is possible without modifying model parameters (the stability landscape) All of these
Which of the following is a true statement about our Water 4.0 future?
All of these Water 4.0's decentralized path brings the responsibility for acquisition, treatment and management of water to the individual household or neighborhood scale, requiring a dramatic shift in public attitudes towards water and its use Water 4.0 is really a combination of two trajectories that (in combination) are consistent with the soft path for water. Water 4.0's centralized path focuses on offsetting and augmenting potable water use with recycled water schemes and desalination, and recovering water, energy, and nutrients from sewage in centralized treatment plants All of these
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
Which of the following statements is true? (Dimensionality)
As the dimensionality of the system increases to encompass more species, the dynamics become complex and detailed validation of models using field data becomes difficult
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
Which of the following is a true statement about Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs)?
BBNs can be represented graphically using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) that contain both nodes (variables) and directed links (arrows)
What does the acronym BBN stand for?
Bayesian Belief Network
The authors argue that the first case study for FrASH (a collection of rain gardens) was an example of a successful GI project, but not an impactful one. Why was the project not impactful?
Because curb cutouts were not installed severely limiting the rain gardens capacity to perform hydrologic services in addition to biodiversity and pollination services
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.
The figures below indicate that the equilibrium for vegetation density (V) and cattle production (PG) can both be high in the region between T1 and T2. Why is managing the system in this region dangerous?
Because the breakpoint (black dashed curve) for cattle production and vegetation density both lie in this region which means that the vegetation-herbivore system could easily be pushed into an alternate stable state (low vegetation and low cattle)
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
What is biophilia?
Biophilia is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms
Which of the following is NOT a measure of node centrality defined by Jackson?
Bipartite centrality
Which US states have some of the most energy-intensive water supplies in the world?
California and Arizona
Table 1 (above) shows the ecosystem services the authors chose to evaluate. Which of these are not FEGS?
Carbon sequestration and Mental health
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 accurately describes the difference between causal inference and diagnostic inference?
Causal inference describes the practice of predicting the status of the output variable given information on the status of the input variable. Diagnostic inference describes the practice of predicting the status of the input variable given information on the status of the output variable.
Which of the following is a relatively cheap way to inactivate estradiol during wastewater treatment and prevent feminization of fish?
Chlorination
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?
Chlorination followed by Ozone Ozone followed by Granular Activated Carbon
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
A variety of design parameters that could influence biofilter performance were evaluated in this paper. These can be organized into three main categories. Which of the following accurately describes these categories?
Drainage configuration (standard vs submerged zone), plant species, and storm frequency (high frequency = wet vs low frequency = dry)
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
Green infrastructure projects from what two cities were presented as case studies for FrASH?
Cleveland Ohio and Atlanta Georgia
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
Beyond the exorbitant cost of repairing and upgrading todays infrastructure to meet the growing need for drinking water and sewage disposal what two additional factors might make cities decide to pursue a water sensitive (water 4.0) future?
Concerns about climate change impacts on existing water systems and the discovery of (and need to regulate) new contaminants
What wellbeing domain defined by the authors is entirely new and has not been included in prior well-being indices?
Connection to Nature
Which of the following is a true statement about the relative benefits of constructing large vs small wetlands?
Constructing many small to moderately sized wetlands is expected to improve the condition of a larger number of streams and is therefore highly desirable from an urban stream syndrome perspective
Which of the following is a true statement? (Drinking water pipes)
Drinking water pipes are pressurized but pipes that convey sewage are only pressurized as needed
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? (Nature-based solutions)
Frequent maintenance can both increase the capacity of nature-based solutions to provide services and act to reduce or negate those services over the lifetime of the system
Well-being measures are typically linked to what two types of objectives?
Economic and Social policy objectives
Which of the following accurately describes the levee paradox?
Economic loss from flooding and high perceived flood risk prompts societies to build levees that reduce flooding. Reduced experience of flooding reduces societal memory and prompts people to move into flood zones, potentially increasing flood risk
What three categories of goods and services impact all nine domains of well-being?
Economic services, Social services, and Ecological services
Which equations in Di Baldassarre's model describe the dynamic system itself (i.e., account for the evolution of the human-flood system between flood events)?
Economy equation (E), Politics equation (D), and Society equation (M)
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
Which of the following is a true statement about the efficiency of seawater reverse osmosis?
Currently the process consumes twice the energy it would if it were perfectly efficient (50% efficient)
Which of the following is a true statement about water and energy?
D) A and B A) Drinking water and sewage treatment plants consume about 4% of the nations electricity B) About 85% of the electricity consumed by modern water and wastewater systems is used for pumping water and sewage
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 three dimensions of equity do the authors argue are critical to understanding the value of urban nature?
Differences in exposure to environmental harms or access to benefits, policies and processes that lead to unequal environmental outcomes, and unequal distribution of assets and financial resources
Which of the following is NOT a true statement about plant traits and nitrogen removal?
Different plant traits increased nitrogen removal in biofilters planted with plants from different regions of the country
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
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
Classifying FEGS requires what two categories of information?
Environmental Class/subclass and Beneficiary Category/subcategory
Which of the following is a true statement? (Environmental justice)
Environmental justice analysis has rarely been applied to water problems
Which of the following statements about equilibrium points is true?
Equilibrium points occur whenever the positive and negative rates that characterize a system are equal to each other (i.e., growth = decay)
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
Which of the following is not a reason to use FEGS as a foundation for defining and classifying ecosystem services?
FEGS allow for double counting of ecosystem services
How are FEGS distinguished from economic products?
FEGS are goods and services that are largely environmentally derived. Economic products also require major inputs of labor or capital from humans
Which of the following is a true statement about FEGS?
FEGS are the ultimate biophysical entity in nature used by individuals to acquire a human benefit
What does the acronym FEGS stand for?
Final Ecosystem Goods and Services
In Di Baldassarre's model what three conditions must be met for a society to build a levee?
Flooding must occur, the damage caused by flooding must exceed the cost of building a levee, and the society must have enough wealth remaining after flooding to build a levee
Why might a society benefit from settling in a flood plain?
Floodplains offer favorable conditions for trade, agriculture, and economic development
What does FrASH stand for?
Framework for Adaptive Socio-Hydrology
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
Which of the following are considered domains of well-being?
Health, Life Satisfaction and Happiness, Social Cohesion, Safety and Security, and Connection to Nature
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 the correct definition of homophily?
Homophily describes the tendency for people to seek out connections with those who are similar to themselves
Closeness centrality is a measure of:
How easily a node can reach other nodes
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
What chemical is responsible for the majority of the smell in sewage?
Hydrogen sulfide
Which equations in Di Baldassarre's model describe mechanisms happening during or immediately after flood events (i.e., are flood response equations)?
Hydrology equation (F), Levee raising equation (R), and Psychological Shock equation (S)
Which of the following statements is true? (Stable States)
If a system has multiple unique stable states the state it adopts will reflect historical effects (i.e., initial conditions)
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)
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
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 is one unusual feature of how insect pest populations tend to be modeled in a system dynamics framework?
Insect pest populations often have discrete generations making expressing changes in insect number (N) over time as a continuous rate (dN/dt) inappropriate.
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
What nation currently provides water desalinated by reverse osmosis at the lowest cost per gallon (one more recently developed systems have been unable to match)?
Israel
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
Which of the following best characterizes the relationship between greenspace and safety and security?
It is highly variable (positive or negative) and context-specific
Orange County's treatment plant "Water Factory 21" was a seminal water reuse project for which of the following reasons
It was the first treatment plant to employ the reverse-osmosis process
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 best describes the current trend in leisure time available in the US?
Leisure time is increasing but inequitably
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
David Sedlak identifies several local water sources that could be used to help wean cities off of imported potable water. Which of these sources did he feel was most likely to be accepted by the public as a constituent of the potable water supply?
Local groundwater
In May's vegetation-herbivore example, vegetation growth rates and herbivory rates were modeled using what functional forms?
Logistic vegetation growth and Hollings type 2 or Hollings type 3 herbivory
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 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
Which of the following systems did May indicate have been shown (mathematically or empirically) to be capable of exhibiting alternate stable states?
Managed grazing ecosystems, insect pest populations, human host-parasite systems
Which of the following is a true statement about the role of conditional probabilities and marginal probability distributions in BBNs?
Marginal probability distributions represent individual nodes in DAG models whereas conditional probabilities quantify causal relationships between nodes (i.e., arrows)
What does the acronym MAR stand for?
Mean Annual Rainfall
In May's vegetation-herbivore example multiple stable states were observed under what conditions?
Medium herbivory when the ratio of the vegetation biomass at which consumption saturates and the carrying capacity for vegetation (V0/K) << 1
What services did the authors feel have the broadest range of potential value (spanning the continuum from low to high)?
Mental health and Stormwater and wastewater management
Which of the following does NOT correctly match a wetland design feature to its intended function?
Micropools are expansive open water areas in the center of wetlands that facilitate solar inactivation of microbial pathogens
BBNs can be used to express which of the following types of uncertainty?
Model input uncertainty and parameter uncertainty
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 do the authors NOT identify as a key knowledge gap in urban ecosystem services research?
Most urban ecosystem services assessments are performed in Africa, South America, and China, with relatively few being performed in older cities with aging infrastructure (i.e., in the US or Europe).
Which of the following are desalination approaches that were developed during WWII that improved the efficiency of desalination?
Multi-stage flash desalination and vapor compression desalination
What two biofilter performance criteria did the Payne et al., manuscript focus on?
Nitrogen removal and water loss
Are FEGS the same as benefits?
No
Are non-renewable goods and services considered FEGS?
No
Is there currently a nationally recognized definition of human well-being in the US?
No
Which green infrastructure archetype is superior to the others and should be used in nearly all situations?
No archetype is superior. They all have their utility
Which of the following statements is true? (Water sensitive city)
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
Which of the following is a true statement about the above-noted graph?
Node C is dependent on A and B
Which of the following technologies cannot be a part of the "soft path" for water?
None of these Low Impact Development Dams and Reservoirs Wastewater treatment plants and Recycled water plants Desalination None of these
Which of the following is NOT a true statement?
Nonpotable wastewater reuse is never considered regeneration
What is the highest-valued ecosystem service in cities without a non-nature substitute?
Outdoor recreation
Interdependencies in a DAG simplify calculation of the joint probability distribution over the systems variables. In the absence of any information about DAG structure, the following expression would be used to calculate the joint probability of a four node network (A, B, C, D): P(A,B,C,D) = P(A) x P(B|A) x P(C|A,B) x P(D|A,B,C). What does this simplify to for the network shown above?
P(A,B,C,D) = P(A) x P(B) x P(C|A,B) x P(D|C)
Trickling filters were an effective way of oxidizing contaminants in sewage because they had:
Partially saturated gravel media
Which of the following accurately describes the difference between participation and inclusion?
Participation refers to the number and diversity of individuals or groups that are involved in a project whereas inclusion refers to the number and diversity of stakeholder goals that actively shape project development
What is most of the money that water and sewer utilities collect from their service base spent on?
Personnel and Labor (salaries, pensions, etc)
What is meant by a bipartite network?
The nodes in the network can be divided into two groups based on their defining characteristics
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
The degree of a node is defined as:
The number of connections it has
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
Which of the following is a true statement about reused and recycled wastewater?
Reused and recycled wastewater are water resources that are largely resistant to climate change (for instance, drought)
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
In the authors framework for valuing urban nature what three major variables moderate value?
Social factors, technological factors, and ecological factors
Which of the following is an accurate definition of 'nature-based solutions'?
Solutions that aim to use living (green) infrastructure to promote public health and safety, enhance livability, and restore natural hydrologic and ecological processes
What green infrastructure (GI) archetype is traditionally used to site GI?
Specialized
Which of the following is a true statement?
Spiritual and cultural value is influenced by our connection to natural systems and opportunities to identify with them
What kinds of water can be used in potable substitution schemes?
Stormwater, Wastewater, Saltwater, Greywater
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
Grant et al., list three ways to improve water productivity: Substitution, Regeneration, and Reduction. David Sedlak uses different terms (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) to refer to similar concepts. Which of the following best matches the terminology used by Grant et al., to the terminology used by Sedlak?
Substitution and Reuse, Regeneration and Recycle, and Reduction and Reduce
In Di Baldassarre's simulations what key component of the human-flood system does he develop scenarios to evaluate?
Technology (he permutes the cost of building levees and the decay rate of levees once built)
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)
In the Florentine marriage example, Jackson argues that which of the following was the MAIN reason the Medici family rose to power?
The Medici family had high betweenness centrality allowing them to control the flow of information and broker business deals between families more readily than any other family could
Toilet-to-tap was an inflammatory slogan used to refer to which of the following?
The practice of recycling wastewater to a potable level and introducing it (directly or indirectly) to the drinking water supply
What is meant by "the Replacement era" for urban water systems?
The Replacement era is a consequence of the majority of the first generation of urban water infrastructure reaching the end of its lifetime simultaneously, necessitating massive investment in infrastructure replacement and upgrades
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%
Where in the US is climate change expected to increase the annual amount of precipitation with more rain falling in large storms?
The eastern and midwestern US
What does Gleick consider the most serious unresolved water problem?
The failure to meet basic human needs for water
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.
Which of the following is a true statement?
The most effective leisure time activities for recovering from work stress are spending time outdoors and interacting with nature
Which of the following is likely to be a major challenge for dense urban centers looking to break free of the water grid?
The need for large diameter, high pressure water pipelines for firefighting in areas where land for water features like ponds and wetlands is limited
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
Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the "soft path" for water?
The soft path for water strives to increase sources of new supply rather than improve the productivity of water use
Which of the following is the correct definition of water productivity?
The value of goods and services produced per unit of water used
What is the definition of a hydro-social contract?
The values and agreements between communities governments and business on how water should be managed
Where in the US is climate change expected to increase temperatures, increase evaporation, and reduce snowpack?
The western and southern US
Why does the EPA recommend siting constructed wetlands near existing natural wetlands?
The wildlife value of a wetland increases as the total area of wetland habitat in the vicinity increases
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 NOT a goal of stormwater wetlands?
To recharge groundwater
Most indoor water use in the US occurs when people use what three types of appliances?
Toilets, showers/faucets, and washing machines
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
In May's vegetation-herbivore example, hysteresis is observed
True
Which of the following is an example of double counting?
When the value of an intermediate ecosystem service is added to the value of FEGS it helped generate
How do the authors define the value of ecosystem services?
Value is defined as a measure of worth or well-being that can be quantified in monetary terms or using non-monetary metrics such as perceived good quality of life
In Fig. 3 (shown below), what values of V (vegetation biomass) are NOT stable state equilibrium values for any value of H (herbivore stock density)?
Values of V in the range covered by the dashed black curve (i.e., breakpoint curve)
Which of the following is a true statement? (Wastewater)
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
What strategy for improving water productivity was the most effective of all 21 evaluated at the city scale (think back on Fig. 1)
Water reduction (Elimination of non-revenue water)
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
What does the trend in global water withdrawals look like post 1970 and what does this imply about the basic water future we are on?
Water withdrawals passed an inflection point post 1970 and have started to level off suggesting that demand may be approaching a steady state
Across the US, half of household water use is allocated to what?
Watering lawns
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 regions of the world did the biofilter plants evaluated in the Payne et al., study come from?
Western Australia and Victoria Australia
What fictional town did Di Baldassarre model in this paper?
WetTown
When sizing a wetland, several key characteristics are considered. Which of these is NOT one of those characteristics?
Wetland depth to vegetation height ratio: the wetland depth to vegetation height ratio must be ≥ 1 so that wetland vegetation always remains completely submerged
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
