APES Water Unit Test
How does John Todd's wetland idea work?
1) Algae and microorganisms decompose organic wastes, with sunlight helping them. 2) Water hyacinths, cattails, bulrushes, etc. take up resulting nutrients. 3) After flowing through this purification, the water passes through an artificial marsh of sand, gravel, and bulrush plants, which filter algae and remaining organic wastes. 4) Some plants absorb toxic metals like lead and mercury and secrete natural antibiotic compounds that kill pathogens. 5) Snails and zooplankton consume microorganisms and in turn are consumed by crayfish, tilapia, and other fish than can be eaten and sold as bait. 6) After days, the water goes through a second artificial marsh. 7) The water can be made pure by exposing it to UV light or by passing it through an ozone generator.
Diarrhea alone kills 1.__________, about 2.______ of them under 5 in developing countries.
1. 1.9 million people 2. 90%
1.___ of the world's freshwater fish species are threatened or endangered primarily because dams and water withdrawals have destroyed the rivers.
1. 1/4
1.____ of the world's households live in hydrological poverty and have to fetch water form outside their homes, typically from rivers, lakes and village wells.
1. 2/3s
The EPA found in 2006 that 1.____ of our lakes and 2.____ of our streams are too polluted for swimming and fishing.
1. 45% 2. 40%
1.____ million Americans drink water that does not meet EPA safety standards.
1. 5.6
1.___% of the rain in the Amazon rainforest comes through transpiration.
1. 50%
In 2003, the World Commission on Water in the 21st Century said 1._____ the world's 500 rivers are heavily polluted.
1. 50%
Up to 1.____ of antibiotics are excreted unaltered and end up in our water supply encouraging antibiotic resistance.
1. 95%
What are other ways to find pollutants?
1. Chemical analysis to determine the presence and concentrations of specific organic chemicals in polluted water. 2. Monitor water pollution by using live organisms as indicator species. 3. Remove aquatic plants such as cattails and analyze them to determine pollution in areas contaminated. 4. Determine water quality also by analyzing bottom-dwelling species such as mussels that feed by filtering water through their bodies. 5. Genetic engineers are working to develop bacteria and yeasts that fluoresce or glow in the presence of toxic heavy metals in ocean, toxins in the air from chemical weapons and carcinogens in food.
How does urbanization affect water quality?
1. Concrete reduces the infiltration to runoff ratio. 2. Lower infiltration reduces recharge of groundwater. 3. Increases runoff from nonpoint and point sources increases the fecal bacteria count.
What does the case of Lake Washington teach us?
1. Large effluents from sewage treatment plants and other sources of phosphate nutrients should not be discharged into a lake unless these nutrients are removed by advanced treatment. 2. Eutrophication can be reversed in a short time if nutrient inputs are reduced a lot. 3. Citizen action combined with scientific research works.
How can we cleanup lakes after they've been impacted by cultural eutrophication?
1. Mechanically remove excess weeds. 2. Control undesirable plant growth with herbicides and algicides. 3. Pump air through lakes to prevent oxygen depletion. 4. Pollution prevention is cheaper than clean up.
What is the process of sewage treatment?
1. Primary sewage treatment, a physical process that uses screens and grit to remove large floating objects and allow solids to settle. a. Waste flows into primary settling tank where organic solids form sludge. 2. Secondary sewage treatment, a biological process in which aerobic bacteria remove as much as 90% of the dissolved and biodegradable oxygen demanding organic wastes. 3. Advanced or tertiary sewage treatment uses specialized chemical and physical processes to remove specific pollutants left in water. 4. Before discharge, water from these levels undergoes bleaching to remove water coloration and disinfection to kill diseases. This uses chlorination.
How can we combat cultural eutrophication?
1. Use advanced waste treatment to remove nitrates and phosphates before wastewater enters lakes. 2. Ban or limit the use of phosphates in household detergents and other cleaning products. 3. Employ soil conservation and land-use control to reduce nutrient runoff.
What are some issues with cloud seeding?
1: Cloud seeding does not work well in very dry areas where rain is needed most, because there are few clouds to see. 2: Although some proponents in the multimillion-dollar cloud-seeding industry say the technology works, a 2003 report says there is no compelling evidence that it does. 3: it introduces large amounts of the cloud-seeding chemicals into the soil and water systems, possibly harming people, wildlife, crops, etc. 4: Seeding has led to legal disputes over the ownership of cloud water
What is the issue with desalination?
1: It is very costly. It takes a lot of energy to deslinate water. 2: Desalination produces large quantities of briny wastewater that contains lots of salt and other minerals. Dumping this into a nearby ocean increases the salinity of the ocean water, threatens food resources and aquatic life. Dumping it on land can contaminate groundwater and surface water.
What are the four major problems with the Colorado River use?
1: The Colorado River basin includes some of the driest lands in the United States and Mexico. 2: For its size the river only has a modest flow of water. 3: Legal pacts signed in 1922 and 1944 allocated more water for human in the U.S. and Mexico than the river can supply, even in years without a drought. 4: Since 1905 the amount of water flowing in the river has dropped dramatically because several states and Mexico have increasingly withdrawn its water for agricultural and urban uses.
Why is it hard to remove dams?
1: The costs on taxpayers are high. 2: There are always legal fights and controversies. 3: Removing dams can expose downstream water users to toxic sediments that have built up. 4: Political opposition, as seen with the Glen Canyon Dam
What are some impacts of the Aral Sea?
1: The salinity has tripled since the 60s. 2: Reduced the rivers to trickles. 3: Huge area of lake bottom has been converted in a man-made desert covered with white salt. 4: This caused the extinction of 20 of the lake's 24 fish species. 5: Devastated the fishing industry. 6: The winds pick up the salt and blow it onto fields as far as 190 miles away. 7: The salt chokes people, pollutes water, and kills crops, wildlife, and other things. 8: Aral dust settling onto the glaciers in the Himalayas is causing them to melt faster. 9: To raise yields, farmers increase the use of insecticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and irrigation water on crops. 10: Percolated downward and gone into the groundwater, aka their main source of groundwater. 11: There used to be normal climate, but now there is less rain, hotter summers, colder winters, and shorter growing season.
Why is the Ganges so polluted?
350 million people live in the Ganges River basin. Very little of the sewage produced by these people is treated. This situation is complicated by the Hindu belief in cremating the dead to free the soul and throwing the ashes in the holy Ganges to increase the chances of the soul getting into heaven. Wood fires are used to burn most bodies, which pollutes air and ruins their forests. It also causes water pollution because many people cannot afford wood for cremation. As a result, many unburnt or partially burnt bodies are put into the river to mingle with livestock corpses. These decomposing bodies depleted oxygen and adds viruses to the water.
What is the percent of water use?
70% agriculture, 20% industrial, and 10% domestic.
How much water is not consumed or recovered every year?
70%.
What should we do with sludge?
9% by weight of this sludge is put in large circular digesters and converted to compost for use as a soil conditioner. 36% of the sludge, called biosolids, is used to fertilize farms, forests, golf courses, cemeteries, etc. 55% is dumped in conventional landfills or is incinerated, both polluting areas. It is desirable to recycle plant nutrients in sewage sludge to the soil on land. As long as harmful bacteria and other pathogens and toxic chemicals are not present, sludge can fertilize land used for food crops or livestock. But removing bacteria, metals, and chemicals is expensive.
What are the main sources of water pollution?
Agricultural activities are by far the leading cause of water pollution. Sediment eroded from agricultural lands is the largest source. Other agricultural pollutants are fertilizers, pesticides, bacteria from livestock, food processing wastes, and excess salt from soils of irrigated cropland. Industrial facilities are another source of water pollution from a variety of harmful inorganic and organic chemicals. Mining is a third source. Surface mining disturbs the earth's surface, creating a major source of eroded sediments and runoff of toxic chemicals.
What is a water table?
An elevation of water above the zone of saturation. When it drops, removes support of holding everything above.
What happens if we misuse irrigation water?
As seen in the Central Valley, we can increase salinization.
Some pathogens in water are?
Bacteria: typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery. Virus: hepatitis. Parasitic: amoebic dysentery, cryptosporidium.
What are the benefits and takeaways of floods?
Benefits: 1: They provide the world's most productive farmland thanks to nutrient-rich silt left behind after floodwaters recede. 2: They recharge groundwater. 3: Refill wetlands. Takeaways: 1: They also kill thousands of people and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage.
How can we capture, control and protect our water?
Channelization: concrete streams to control flow. Gives us control, protects the urban area, but reduces biota. Reservoirs and dams: captures rain water. Transferring water: aqueducts.
What is an oligotrophic lake?
Cold and blue lake. Has warm water that circulates. It freezes over, has little life, and high dissolved oxygen.
How do we deal with water shortages?
Conservation, cloud seeding, capturing storm water, banking water, water recycling.
What are some efficient ways to irrigate, excluding the flood irrigation we use today?
Drip irrigation or microirrigation. Some other tech is DRiWATER and soil moisture detectors.
What irrigation should we use?
Drip irrigation.
What causes freshwater storage?
Drought, too many people living in a dry climate, large rivers are far from population/ag. centers, overdrawing water.
What is eutrophication?
Eutrophication is the name of natural nutrient enrichment of a shallow lake, slow stream, or estuary, mostly from runoff of plant nutrients like phosphates and nitrates.
What are the use percentages of the five most consuming indoor domestic water uses?
Flushing toilets: 38%. Bathing: 31%. Laundry and Dishes: 20%. Drinking and Cooking: 6% Brushing Teeth and Shaving: 5%
What kind of issues is water shortages?
Global health issue: lack of water and unsafe water and sanitation is the world's single largest cause of illness. Children's issue: water is essential for healthy development. Economic issue: is a key to poverty reduction, food production, and energy production. Women's issue: in developing countries women and girls are responsible for finding water and carrying daily supplies of water. National and global security issue: increasing tensions over access to limited but shared water resources in the Middle East and other areas.
What is HAB?
HAB are red, brown, and green tides that release waterborne and airborne toxins that damage fisheries, reduce tourism, kill fish eating birds, and poison seafood. They're caused by rapid algae growth followed by their eventual decomposition by the growing colonies of bacteria. They result from excessive inputs of phosphates and nitrates from fertilizers and animal wastes from land runoff and deposition of nitrogen from the troposphere.
How have we affected the water cycle?
Habitat alteration: changed the water cycle with the infiltration-runoff ratio. Amount of gravitational water can vary due to alteration of recharge area.
What are some common water pollutants?
Heavy metals: mercury, lead, arsenic, and aluminum. Heat: thermal. Nutrients: nitrates and phosphates. Sediment: absorbs energy and increase temperature. Organic material: sewage and agricultural runoff.
What is a confined aquifer?
Held in by impermeable rock. Recharged from above and creates an Artisan well.
What does atrazine do?
Horribly mutates animals, specifically catfish and frogs. :(
What is cultural eutrophication?
Human activities can increase the input of plant nutrients into water - this is called cultural eutrophication. It is mostly nitrate and phosphate-containing effluents from various sources like farmland, animal feedlots, urban areas, mining sites, and front yards. Nitrogen comes through deposition.
What happened to the Exxon Valdez?
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker with a drunk captain went off course, hit rocks, and released oil into Alaska Prince William Sound. 1,500 kilometers of shore were contaminated and it cost 8 billion in damages. Many birds, fish, and sea otters were killed by the oil. 17 years after the spill, there are still toxic patches. Every 8 months an amount of oil equal to that spilled by Exxon Valdez drains from the land into the ocean.
What is the Kesterson story?
In the 1980s, there was a refuge in areas of the San Joaquin Valley where birds and other organisms started being born with deformities. This was because water in the marshland came from old farming irrigation water of the Central Valley with a lot of selenium in it.
What else can over pumping aquifers do?
Increase gap between rich and poor because the more the water table drops, the less accessible it is to the poor since they do not have the money to buy tech to get any water. Also limits future food production.
What gives us groundwater?
Infiltration and percolation.
Natural causes of floods?
Influx of rain. Poorly defined channels for water to flow through. Absence of floodplains, which absorb the water.
How can climate change impact water pollution?
Intense downpours can flush out more harmful chemicals, plant nutrients, and microorganisms into waterways. Drought can reduce river flows that dilute wastes and spread infectious diseases more rapidly
What are the two sources of water pollution?
It can come from either single point sources or larger and dispersed nonpoint sources.
What happened at Ohio's Cuyahoga River?
It was so polluted that in 1959 and 1969 it caught fire and burned for several days as it flowed through Cleveland. This image prompted officials to enact laws limiting the discharge of industrial wastes into the river and sewage systems and providing funds to upgrade sewage treatment facilities. Today the river is cleaner, no longer flammable, and is used by boaters and anglers.
Why is Lake Erie the most contaminated?
Lake Erie is the most impacted because it is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and because it has the highest concentration of people and industrial activity along its shores. The lake almost lost all of its native fish by the 70s.
What does excessive water withdrawal do?
Leads to disappearing species, lower water tables, declining fish populations, altered river flows, shrinking lakes, loss of wetlands, and declining water quality.
What is the Water Quality Act (1987)?
Limits nonpoint pollution. One of the main forms is constructions.
How to reduce irrigation water waste?
Line canals bringing water to irrigation ditches. Level fields with lasers. Irrigate at night to reduce evaporation. Monitor soil moisture to add water only when necessary. Polyculture. Organic farming. Don't grow water-thirsty crops in dry areas. Irrigate with treated urban waste water. Import water-intensive crops and meat.
What is MTBE?
MTBE is methyl tertiary butyl ether. MTBE is a carcinogen, fuel additive, and non degradable. In 1996 7 of 11 municipal wells in Santa Monica were closed due to MBTE contamination. It is being phased out but plumes of contaminated groundwater will still move through for decades.
What is water scarcity caused by?
Main factors causing water scarcity are dry climates, drought, too many people using and wasting the reliable supply of water, and lack of money to drill deep wells and build dams and storage reservoirs and water distribution systems.
What is one method to detect the presence of infectious agents in water?
Measuring the numbers of colonies of fecal coliform bacteria present in a water sample. Although most strains of coliform bacteria do not cause disease, their presence indicates the water was exposed to human / animal waste that is now likely to have disease-causing agents.
How do developing countries deal with their untreated sewage and why is this a problem?
Most countries dump their untreated sewage into streams or rivers. This is a problem because most of their countries get their drinking water from nearby rivers or streams, but this areas are contaminated with sewage. Some areas have religious and cultural connotations, like the Ganges in India, where people dump dead bodies and ashes after Hindus die because they believe the river is holy. This isn't sewage, but the river is also full of sewage and people still bathe, swim, and even drink from this river. It is a problem because not only does it obviously impact the environment, but it also is not a sustainable option for developing countries. This spread illnesses even more and with the growing population in these areas, it simply will not suffice for long enough.
How is water used in Eastern U.S. vs Western U.S?
Most water in the East is used for energy production, cooling, and manufacturing. The most serious water problems are flooding, occasional urban shortages, and pollution. In the arid and semiarid areas of the western half of the United States irrigation counts for 85% of water use.
What is the name of the process by which aquifers are replenished?
Natural Recharge.
What do nitrate ions in groundwater do?
Nitrate ions can come from agriculture. Nitrate ions in stomachs, colons, and bladders can convert into cancer or "blue baby syndrome" in infants.
Are eutrophication and oxygen sag curves the same?
No. Oxygen sag curve is in moving water, not stilled water like eutrophication.
Should we rely on bottled water?
No. While bottled water is very pure and safe to drink, it has costly environmental and economic impacts.
What are nonpoint sources?
Nonpoint sources are scattered and diffuse and cannot be traced to a single site of discharge. There is little progress in controlling them because of the difficulty of controlling and identifying these discharges. Ex: deposition from the atmosphere, runoff of chemicals and sediments into surface water from livestock feedlots, cropland, logged forests, surface mines and resident areas.
What is the Ogallala? Why is it vanishing so fast?
Ogallala, the world's largest known aquifer extending through the Great Plains to Texas, has some of the worst withdrawal rates. It is a one-time deposit of natural capital with a slow recharge rate. Government subsidies designed to increase crop production and have farmers grow thirsty crops have increased depletion of the aquifer.
What happens when pollutants get into aquifer or groundwater?
Once a pollutant from a leaking underground storage tank or other source gets into groundwater, it fills the aquifer's porous layers of sand, gravel, or bedrock. This makes removal of contaminant costly. Once it reaches the real aquifer, the flowing groundwater disperses the pollutant in a widening plume of contaminated water. If this plume reaches a well extracting groundwater, the pollutants can get into drinking water or irrigation water.
What are point sources?
Point sources discharge pollutants at specific locations through drain pipes, ditches, or sewer lines into bodies of surface water. They are fairly easy to identify, monitor, and regulate. Ex: factories, sewage treatment plants, underground mines, oil tankers.
What are some pros and cons of the Three Gorges Dam?
Pros -It will have the electrical output of 18 large-coal burning or nuclear power plants and will help reduce China's dependency on coal and emissions of CO2. -Will hold back the Yangtze River's floodwaters. -Enables large cargo-carrying ships to travel deep into China's interior, reducing transportation costs. Cons: - Displaces over 1.2 million people from the area to be flooded. - Taken away from ancestral homes and put on land too barren to grow crops. - Will flood one of China's most beautiful areas, 1,350 cities and villages, and thousands of archeological and cultural sites. - Some believe the slow flow of the water in the reservoir will release huge amounts of sediment, which will reduce lifespan of the reservoir.
How can we control groundwater withdrawal?
Raise water prices, tax water pumped from wells near surface waters, set and enforce minimum stream levels.
How to reduce regular water waste?
Redesign manufacturing processes. Repair leaking underground pipes. Landscape yards with plants that require little water. Use drip irrigation. Fix water leaks. Use water meters. Raise water prices. Require water conservation in water-short cities. Use waterless composting toilets. Use water-saving toilets, showerheads, and front-loading clothes washers. Collect and reuse household water to irrigate lawns and nonedible plants. Purify and reuse water for houses, apartments, and office buildings. Don't waste energy.
What is the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act?
Requires the EPA to establish national drinking water standards called maximum contaminant levels. Some want to strengthen the act. One way is to combine many of the treatment systems that serve fewer than 3,300 people with nearby big systems to make it cheaper. Another way is to strengthen and enforce public notification requirement about violations of standards. They also call for banning all toxic lead in new plumbing fixtures.
What recharges aquifers and why doesn't runoff recharge aquifers?
Runoff goes to the ocean, not underground. Evaporation and transpiration recharge groundwater.
What is saltwater intrusion?
Saltwater intrusion is the overdrawing from wells near coastlines which encourages salt water to intrude on the fresh water supply. Injecting gray water from treatment plants helps hold back salt water. Saltwater increases corrosion.
What marsh is famous for treatment and used as a model?
San Joaquin Marsh.
What are some main sources of groundwater pollution?
Septic tanks, road salts, landfills, and mining sites.
Should we dump pollutants in the ocean?
Some scientists say it is safer to dump sewage sludge and other harmful wastes into the deep ocean rather than to bury them on land or burn them. Others disagree, saying that we know less about the deep ocean than we know about the moon. They also say that dumping harmful wastes in the ocean would delay needed pollution prevention and promote further degradation.
Should we privatize water sources?
Some think that private companies have better management and money to manage them. Others think that water is too important to leave in private interests and it is very hard to get it back once we privatize. Plus, there is an incentive to sell, not supply water, and the poor will be left out.
What happens to land after WAY too much over pumping?
Subsidence. Sinkholes are one kind of subsidence; they form when the roof of an underground cavern collapses after being drained of the groundwater and creates a large surface crater.
What is a eutrophic lake?
Susceptible to eutrophication, and much more common than oligotrophic lakes. Low dissolved oxygen, high BOD, lot of biota. Green in color.
What is the Clean Water Act?
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, renamed the Clean Water Act forms the basis of efforts to control pollution of our surface waters. The Clean Water Act sets standards for allowed levels of key water pollutants and requires polluters to get permits limiting how much of various pollutants they can discharge. It recognized the need for planning to address the critical problems posed by nonpoint source pollution.
What is reliable runoff?
The amount of surface runoff that we can generally count on as a stable source of freshwater from year to year.
What happened to Chesapeake Bay?
The bay is horribly polluted. Point sources, usually sewage and industrial plants, account for 60% by weight of the phosphates. Nonpoint sources, mostly runoff and deposition, account for 60% by weight of the nitrates. Phosphate and nitrate levels have risen sharply in many areas of the bay, causing algal blooms and oxygen depletion. Commercial harvests of oysters, crabs, and fish have fallen sharply because of overfishing, disease, and pollution.
How does oxygen sag curve work?
The breakdown of degradable wastes by bacteria depletes the D.O and creates an oxygen sag curve. This reduces populations of organisms with high oxygen requirements. As organic material flows downstream, the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) (amount of oxygen used by aerobic bacteria for decomposing) increases until decomposition by aerobic bacteria is complete, while the oxygen sag curve makes a cosine graph curve shape.
What happens after nutrients come in from cultural eutrophication?
The nutrient overload produces blooms of algae and other aquatic plants which then reduces lake productivity and fish growth by decreasing input of solar energy needed for photosynthesis by the phytoplankton that support fish. Also, when the algae die, their decomposition by aerobic bacteria depletes dissolve oxygen and kills organisms. If more nutrients flow in, the anaerobic bacteria produce gaseous products.
How do manmade activities worsen floods?
The removal and replacement of water-absorbing vegetation, especially on hillsides, with things that can't absorb rain.
What is the big problem with how we withdraw use water, no matter what source?
They key problem is not a lack of water but the rapid rate of which we are withdrawing it for consumptive uses, and thus altering the flow rates in the water cycle.
Why is dilution of pollutants in lakes less effective than in streams?
This is because lakes and reservoirs have stratified layers that undergo little vertical mixing. Flushing of water in lake takes 1-100 years while flushing in streams takes days. This means lakes and reservoirs are more vulnerable to contamination by runoff or discharge than streams are.
What are benefits to withdrawing groundwater?
Useful for drinking and irrigation, available year round, exists almost everywhere, renewable if not overpumped or contaminated, no evaporation losses, and cheaper than other sources.
What does the time and distance for a water system to recover depend upon?
Volume, flow rate, temperature, pH, and amount of incoming oxidizable pollutants.
What is an unconfined aquifer?
Water comes directly from the surface.
What is water pollution?
Water pollution is any chemical, biological, or physical change in water quality that has a harmful effect on organisms or makes water unsuitable for desired use.
What is one big cause of water waste?
We charge too little for the water. Such underpricing is the result of government subsidies that provide irrigation water, electricity, and diesel fuel for farmers to pump water from rivers and aquifers at below-market prices.These subsidies keep the price of water so low that users have little or no financial incentive to invest in water-saving technologies.
Can lakes even recover after eutrophication?
Yes. One example is Lake Washington, in Seattle, Washington, was eutrophied by inputs of sewage treatment and land development. Citizen pressure on officials lead the scheme to divert nutrient-rich effluents from Seattle to the Puget sound, where tides would mix them with ocean water.
What is a watershed?
A watershed is a concentration of water into specific bodies of water or aquifers.
What are the steps to conventional wastewater treatment?
*Find this in Notes and draw it.* 1. Screen. 2. Grinder. 3. Gas Chamber. 4. (Primary) Settling tank. 5. (Secondary) Aeration tank. 6. (Secondary) Settling tank. 7. (Tertiary) Chlorination. 8. (Tertiary) UV Disinfection. There is also a pipe that goes from Step 4, 5, and 6 with activated sludge into a sludge digester.
What do dams impact?
Stop downstream flow, and the hydroelectric energy is not clean because the sediment cannot travel.