Watershed Unit 1

what is water management?

how water and land resources are intimately linked

What are factors that can influence the water cycle?

Deforestation, urbanization, agriculture

What are problems to the water management?

• flooding

• scarcity

• technology leads to degradation

• ecosystem degradation

• food challenges

• industry need

• inefficiency

• conflict

About how much of humanity deals with limited water resources?

a quarter

What are innovative designs for water management solutions?

• vertical farming

• efficient irrigation use

• city resilience to water changes

What are change drivers to water management?

• climate change

• land use

• human population increase

• invasive species

What water management path was taken in the 20th century?

Hard path

What are types of structures in hard path?

• Streams

• canals

• wells

• dams

What is the hard path?

use of infrastructures to manage or redirect water

What are positives for dams?

• water supply

• flood control

• hydropower

• irrigation

what do canals do?

move water from one watershed to next

Where are famous examples of canals?

Arizona and Los Angles

What is benefits to canals?

• navigation

• water movement across long distances

Where do wells and irrigation systems benefit?

economics over environment

What is the soft path?

Management over construction, focused on working both groups together.

What are the values in soft path?

• Balances demands

• efficency and equity

• stake holders

• local wisdom

• govence and management

• water services type

• appropriate geographic scale

What is the Nexus approach?

food, water, energy focused mindset

What is a watershed?

topographic area that is source of water flowing through any point

A water shed is not ____ specific.

scale

What are examples of using watershed in water management?

• ARS research

• tombstone watershed experiments

How is watersheds applied to water management?

• water planning

• experimental/research for efficent use

• river authorities govern

What is a water budget?

estimation of water inputs and outputs of a defined area

What is the water budget equation?

P = ET + R + G + change in S

What are the inputs in the water budget equation?

Precipitation

What are outputs in water equation?

evapotranspiration and runoff and ground water

What is change in storage in water budget equation?

Dynamic change

How does water move in a system?

From input through fluxes to storage oroutputs

What are fluxes in water movement?

movment of water from one storage area to another or output

how would water movement change in an urban envirroment compared to lush forest?

minimal evaporation, no evapotranspiration. mos movement as runoff not stored in soil

What is evapotranspiration?

proccesses by which water changes from liquid to gas state

What are the main types of evapotranspiration in a system?

• interception

• transpiration

• soil evaporation

What is interception?

water is captured by plants and evaporates before it hits ground

What is transpiration?

ecaporation through plants that requires pimping of water through roots and out stomata

What is soil evaporation?

Water infiltrates soil then evaporates

What is potential evapotranspiration?

estimates evaporation of an area if water is unlimited, based off energy of area

What is actual evapotranspiration?

estimation of evaporation evaporation when water is limited, based off energy and water levels

What are examples of ways to measure evapotranspiration?

• evaporator pan

• soil lysimeter

• water budget

What are ways runoff moves?

• overland flow

• shallow sub-surface flow

• groundwater flow

• return flow

What is overland flow?

water pools on surface and moves across the surface

What is shallow sub-surface flow?

water infiltrates soil and moves laterally can deposit at cut banks

What is groundwater flow?

source for streams or rivers that moves water as a storage

Why is overland flow important to water budgets?

important for moving sediment and contaminents from surface to rivers

Why is runoff type important?

determines river characteristics, timing of water flow, amount of sediment, and amount of pollutants

Where is subsoil flow most likely to occur?

in areas where soil profile does not allow for horizontal movement of water

In this scenario what type of runoff is occuring: seasonal flowing of a stream.

groundwater

What is Baseflow?

precipitation that slowly infiltrates soil and slowing supplies water to watershed

What is Stormflow?

precipitation flow attributed to rainfall event

What is lag time in a hydrograph?

highest point of rainfall to peak of stormflow

What is recession in a hydrograph?

tie from peak of stomrflow to baseflow

What is time of rise in a hydrograph?

start of stormflow increase to peak of stormflow

What is Blue water?

Liquid water

What is Green water?

Evaporated water

Why is it important to seperater Green water and blue water in mangement practices?

• irrigation managment

• seperate needs for ecosystems and water usage

• makes informed decisions for water management techniques

What is the issue with the Colorado River?

overconsupmtion and redirection of water from the Colorado River has caused parts of the river and its resivors to dry up.

What are solutions to the Colorado River?

• landscape changes

• improving agriculutre water efficency

• increasing municipal water re-use

• removing harmful organisms (plants and animals)

• appliance of new technology

• renewable energy

• policies on adding in goals listed above

Runoff pathway vs Run off generation?

runoff generation describes how water moves as a runoff while pathway describes the where and how together.

Where does the Colorado river run? who does it supply water to?

Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and border of California