Chapter 15

Question 1

Hydrologic Cycle

Answer 1

• Water Cycle
• Biogeochemical cycle that collects, purifies, and distributes the earth’s fixed supply of water from the environment to living organisms and then back to the environment

Question 2

Surface Runoff

Answer 2

• The precipitation that does not infiltrate the ground or return to the atmosphere by evaporation
• including transportation from plants

Question 3

Watershed/drainage basin

Answer 3

-The region from which surface water drains into a river, lake, wetland, or other body of water

Question 4

Groundwater

Answer 4

• Water that sinks into the soil and is stored in slowly flowing and slowly renewed underground reservoirs called aquifers
• aquifers are underground water in the zone of saturation, below the water table

Question 5

Zone of Aeration

Answer 5

-Zone in the soil that is not saturated with water and that lies above the water table

Question 6

Zone of Saturation

Answer 6

-Area where all available pores in soil and rock in the earth’s crust are filled by water

Question 7

Water Table

Answer 7

-Uper surface of the zone of saturation, in which all available pores in the soil and rock in the earth’s crust are filled with water

Question 8

Aquifers

Answer 8

-Porous, water-saturated layers of sand, gravel, or bedrock that can yield an economically significant amount of water

Question 9

Natural Recharge

Answer 9

-Natural replenishment of an aquifer by precipitation, which percolates downward through soil and rock

Question 10

Desiccation

Answer 10

-Drying of exposed soil because of activities such as deforestation and overgrazing by livestock

Question 11

Water Stress

Answer 11

-Low per capita availability of water caused by increasing numbers of people relying on limited runoff

Question 12

Saltwater Intrusion

Answer 12

-Movement of salt water into freshwater aquifers in coastal and inland areas as groundwater is withdrawn faster than it is recharged by precipitation

Question 13

Desalination

Answer 13

-Purification of salt or brackish (slightly salty) water by removal of dissolved salts

Question 14

Distillation

Answer 14

-Heating salt water until it evaporates, leaving behind salts in solid form, and it condenses as fresh water

Question 15

Reverse Osmosis

Answer 15

-Pumping salt water at high pressure through a thin membrane with pores that allow water molecules, but not most dissolved salts, to pass through

Question 16

Cloud Seeding

Answer 16

• A form of weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds
• Dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei

-I couldn’t find in textbook

Question 17

Xeriscaping

Answer 17

• Replacing green lawns with vegetation adapted to a dry climate because of water-short areas
• Win-Win approach
• Reduces water use by 30-85% and sharply reduces the need for labor, fertilizer, and fuel
• Reduces polluted runoff, air pollution, and yard wastes

Question 18

Floodplain

Answer 18

• Flat valley floor next to a stream channel
• For legal purposes, the term often applies to any low area that has the potential for flooding, including certain coastal areas