Chapter 18 Vocabulary
Point Source- factories, power plants, sewage treatment plants, underground coal mines and oil wells, they discharge pollution from specific locations.
Non Point Source- scattered and diffused, runoff from fields, golf courses, ect.
Atmospheric Deposition- nonpoint pollution, carried by air currents and precipitated into watersheds or directly onto surface waters as rain, snow or dry particles.
Coliform Bacteria- any of the many types that live in the colon or intestines of humans and other animals.
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)- The impact of wastes into water is expressed in terms of this. A standard test of the amount of dissolved oxygen consumed by aquatic microorganisms over a five day period.
Dissolved Oxygen (DO) Content- using oxygen electrodes, the content of water depends on factors other than pollution (temp. and aeration) usually more directly related to whether aquatic organisms survive
Oxygen Sag- The oxygen decline downstream.
Oligotrophic- rivers and lakes that have clear water and low biological productivity
Eutrophic- waters that are rich in organisms and organic materials.
Cultural Eutrophication- An increase in biological productivity and ecosystem succession caused by human activities
Red tide- Bloom of deadly aquatic microorganisms called dinoflagellates
Thermal Plume- The water drawn from a river or lake that is used to cool hot industrial machines and is reintroduced back into the ecosystem, they can disrupt the environment
Total Maximum Daily Loads (LMDL)- The amount of a particular pollutant that a water body can receive from both point and nonpoint sources.
Primary Treatment- the first step in municipal waste treatment. It physically sperates large solids from the waste stream.
Secondary Treatment- Biological degradation of the dissolved organic compounds; an aeration tank, or sewage lagoon
Tertiary Treatment- Removes plant nutrients, especially nitrates and phosphates from the secondary effluent.
Effluent Sewage- a hybrid between a traditional septic tank and a full sewer system.
Best Practicable Control Technology (BPT) and Best Available, Economically Achievable Technology (BAT)- set national goals to make all water fishable and capable of being swam in. For toxic substances and zero discharge for 126 priority toxic pollutants.
chapter 17 notes
Water shortages wand water stress affect at least a third of the worlds population. Water resources are expected to be a major source of regional and international conflict in coming decades.
Distribution of water around the globe depends mainly on climate factors, including high pressure zones and prevailing winds, and topography. Human activities such as deforestation, also affect regional water supplies.
The hydrologic cycle is the movement of water between the ocean, atmosphere, land, and living things. All water on land originates as evaporation, mostly from oceans, which produces rain and snow. Major water compartments involved in the hydrologic cycle include oceans; glaciers, ice, and snow; groundwater; lakes, rivers, and wetlands; and the atmosphere. Residence time in compartments ranges from thousands of years in the ocean to minutes or days in the atmosphere.
Aquifers are porous rock formations that hold water. Water enters aquifers through recharge zones. A confined aquifer is one whose saturated layers are capped (overlain) by impermeable rock layers.
Pumping water from an aquifer produces a cone of depression, often drying out shallower wells. Risks of overpumping aquifers- extracting water faster than it is recharged- include subsiding ground levels, sinkholes, and saltwater intrusion, as well as depletion of water supplies.
Water withdrawal refers to all water taken for use. Consumption refers to water lost to direct use, usually through evaporation or seepage in the ground. Degradation is water contamination by pollutants, salts, or heat, which reduces it utility for later uses.
Worldwide, two-thirds of water withdrawn is used for agriculture. Agriculture accounts for 85 percent of water consumption, mainly through evaporative losses and seepage from unlined canals. Improved irrigation methods are beginning to reduce some consumptive losses.
Industrial and domestic water uses are increasing, although not as fast as agricultural use. Consumption and degradation have fallen somewhat due to conservation and increased efficiency in households and industries.
Water stress occurs when consumption exceeds 20 percent of available, renewable water supplies. At least 45 countries have serious water stress and cannot supply minimum essential water needs for citizens.
Many strategies have been attempted to increase available water supplies. Desalination and water diversions are the principal methods that increase supplies in arid regions. Dams and reservoirs are controversial. They provide essential power and irrigation, but they also have great environmental, economic, and social costs, including ecosystem losses, displaced human populations, and water loss through evaporation.
Water conservation is often the cheapest and most effective way to increase water supplies. Watershed management involves coordinated planning to improve resource allocation and reduce water loss. Efficient household appliances, such as toilets, shower heads, and laundry machines, have greatly reduced per capita consumption in many cities. Dry landscaping is required in some southwestern communities of the United States. Drip irrigation and other agricultural practices can reduce irrigation demands. Water policy- laws regarding water rights and use- is a key factor in conservation.
chapter 17 questions for review
1.) Withdrawal is the total amount of water taken from a lake, river, or aquifer for any purpose. Consumption is the fraction of withdrawn water that is lost in transmission, evaporation, absorption, chemical transformation, or otherwise made unavailable for as a result of human use. Degrading is polluting or heating so that it is unsuitable for other uses.
2.) Withdrawal of water in each section increases as time increases. Agriculture does this on a much larger level than domestic and industry but they are all in proportion. Trends show that withdrawal levels never meet consumption, they are always way higher.
3.) Places with the highest water irrigation are those lining the Mississippi River, and the Midwest.
4.) Some problems with damming and water diversion techniques are that they flood areas above the dam, drowning communities and graveyards. Other problems with dams are that they restrict the migratory patterns of indigenous fish who mate upstream.
5.) Water molecules would move by transpiration, it would evaporate and turn into a gaseous form. When it becomes humid enough and there is enough pressure and water molecules in the air condensation will occur. The water molecules would then runoff into bodies of water that increased in size until it reached the ocean again.
6.) Starting at the largest river; the Amazon in Brazil and Peru; the Orinoco in Venezuela and Columbia; the Congo in the Congo; Yangtze in Tibet, China; and the Bramaputra in Tibet, India and Bangladesh.
7.) Mountains block some rainfall from reaching other places. They cause a rain shadow which creates a dry leeward side of the mountain. This doesn’t really affect my area, there aren’t many mountains.
8.) Three consequences of over-pumping aquifers are subsiding ground levels, sinkholes and saltwater intrusion as well as depletion of water supplies.
9.) 97 percent of water is salt water, 3 percent is freshwater.
10.)An aquifer is a porous layer of gravel, stone or sand that is below the water table. Water enters these aquifers by a seeping process and it stays there.
chapter 17 vocab
Transpiration- transport and evaporation of water in the hydrologic cycle
Evaporation- process in which a liquid is changed to vapor at temperatures well below its boiling point
Sublimation- when water moves from solid to gaseous form without ever becoming a liquid
Saturation Point- when a volume or air contains as much water vapor as it can at a given temperature
Relative Humidity- the amount of water vapor in the air expressed as a percentage of the maximum amount that could be held at that particular point
Condensation- when the saturation concentration is exceeded, water molecules begin to aggregate
Dew Point- for a given amount of water vapor, the temperature at which condensation occurs
Condensation Nuclei- tiny particles, they float in the air and facilitate the process of condensation
Rain Shadow- the dry, leeward side of a mountain range that receives little precipitation
Residence Time- the time it takes a molecule spends circulating in the ocean before it evaporates and starts through the hydrologic cycle
Groundwater- after glaciers, it is the next largest reservoir of fresh water that is held in the ground
Infiltration- Precipitation that doesn’t evaporate back into the air or run off over the surface percolates through the sand and into fractures and spaces of permeable rocks
Zone of Aeration- Upper soil layers that hold both air and water
Water Table- the top of the zone of saturation, it is not flat but follows the topography of the area
Aquifers- porous layers of sand, gravel, or rock lying below the water table
Artesian- when a pressurized aquifer intersects the surface, or if it is penetrated by a pipe or conduit this well or spring results from which water gushes without being pumped
Recharge Zones- areas in which infiltration of water into an aquifer occurs
Discharge- the amount of water that passes a fixed point in a given amount of time
Renewable Water Supplies- made up or in general, surface funoff plus the infiltration into accessible freshwater aquifers
Withdrawal- the total amount of water taken from a lake, river or aquifer for any purpose
Consumption- the faction of withdrawn water that is lost in transmission, evaporation, absorption, chemical transformation, or otherwise made unavailable for other purposes as a result of human use
Degraded- polluted or heated so that it is unsuitable for other uses
Water Stress- a country in which consumption exceeds more than 20 percent of the available, renewable supply is considered vulnerable
Subsidence- settling of the surface above
Sinkholes- form when the roof of an underground channel or cavern collapses, creating a large surface crater
Saltwater Intrusion- consequence of aquifer depletion, saltwater intrudes into freshwater reservoirs
Desalination- reverse osmosis, turning salt water into freshwater
Watershed- catchment, is all the land drained by a stream or river
Tokyo Project Information
types, sources of air pollution http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session4/27/citydiff.htm
effects of pollutants http://www.ehponline.org/docs/1999/107p911-916piver/abstract.html
overall outlook http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyondco/beg_10.pdf
http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~pennenv/greentimes/spring97/air_asim.html
methods of controlling http://www.asiairnet.org/publications/7-Japan.pdf
Pg. 352 Web Exercise
The closest pollution source to my home is Electrical Generating Facility at Ft. Drum, NY. I was aware of its existence. The Deferiet Paper Company exudes 2,140 tons of SO2 in 1999. No I am not surprised to learn about it. Jefferson Co. had three days where air quality levels were unhealthy for sensitive people. Ozone is the biggest pollution type in Jefferson. I honestly don’t know what to do to increase air quality in our area.
Chapter 16 notes
Air Pollution- physical or chemical changes brought about by the natural processes or human activities that result in air quality degradation
Primary pollutants are released into the air in a harmful form. Secondary pollutants are created or converted into hazardous form after they enter the atmosphere, usually by photochemical reactions.
Clean Air Act of 1970 established seven “criteria pollutants(sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates, volatile hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, photochemical oxidants, and lead)- greatest threats to human health; over 660 other pollutants have been added to this list.
More than 200 million Americans live in an area where the risk of death from air pollution effects is greater than the acceptable level of 1 in 1 million. Indoor air is a major part of this health risk, with pollution levels often greater than those outdoors.
Globally, some 2.5 billion people (mostly women and children) are exposed to hazardous levels of smoke from poorly ventilated heating and cooking fires. All together, air pollution constitutes for more deaths per year than any infectious disease.
Aerosols and air toxins can be carried long distances by wind currents. Dust from Chinese deserts, for example, often falls out of the American West. Through a process of sequential evaporation and precipitation, hazardous air pollutants are accumulating in tha Arctic and Antarctic, where they concentrate through food chains to reach dangerous levels in both humans and top predators like polar bears and whales.
Chloroflurocarbons(CFC’s) and other long lasting chlorine containing compounds migrate into the stratosphere where they destroy the ozone layer that protects us from harmful ultraviolet solar radiation. The Montreal Protocol, which called for a phase out of these chemicals, is one of the best examples of international cooperation to fight global air pollution.
Sulfur and nitrogen oxides react in the air to form sulfuric and nitric acids, which fall to earth as acid rain, snow, or dry precipitation. These acids pollute surface waters, kill aquatic organisms, harm vegetation, destroy building materials, and reduce visibility. Pollution controls have greatly reduced these emissions but more needs to be done.
Clean Air Acts passed in most developed countries and in many developing countries are among the central tools for environmental protection. Greatly decreasing global air pollution. Highly controversial facet of this act is the “new source review,” which requires that modern pollution control equipment be installed when old power plants or factories are expanded or upgraded.
Market based approaches to pollution control have been proposed as solid alternatives to government mandates for specific equipment requirements or emission limits. Determining the best way to regulate air quality remains a controversial question.
Air quality has improved dramatically over the past 30 years in most developed countries. Air pollution remains a grave issue however in many poorer countries, especially in the megacities or the developing world and the former Soviet Union.
Chapter 16 review questions
1.)Primary air pollutants are those released directly into the air and are harmful. Secondary air pollutants are those that become harmful when they reach the air, or combine with oxygen and transform.
2.)The seven major air pollutants are sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, photochemical oxidants, and lead. These contribute to the largest amount of air degradation. Six new ones have been added.
3.)Mold is the most prevolent indoor pollutant, along with radon, and uranium. Formaldehyde is the biggest global problem.
4.)Acid desposition is the deposition of wet acidic solutions or dry acidic particles from the air. It degrades building sides and walls. Acid rain is the cause.
5.)Occurs when a stable layer of warmer air overlays cooler air, reversing the normal temperature decline with increasing height and preventing convection currents from dispersing pollutants.
6.)Ambient air is the air around us. Stratospheric ozone is classified as levels over the South Pole were dropping precipitously during Sept. and Oct. every year as the sun reappears at the end of the long polar winter. Colder temperatures in Antartica, and increased amounts of greenhouse gases have degraded the ozone.
7.)Long range air pollution transport is the mass of air pollution that hovers around a particular country. Industrial countries like parts of the US and Mexico.
8.)New source review is to grandfather existing harmful systems in the economy but putting laws into effect that later models need to meets EPA regulations on environmental safety.
9.)Lead has fallen by 98%, while Nitrogen Oxide hasn’t decreased much.
10.)Factories in China have yet to put controls of their factories; they have more than 40,000 and none are regulated.
Chapter 16 vocab
Primary pollutants- Those directly released from the source into the air in a harmful form.
Secondary pollutants- Modified to hazardous form after they enter the air or are formed by chemical reactions as components of the air mix and interact.
Fugitive emissions- Those that do not go through a smoke stack.
Ambient air- Air around us
Conventional or Criteria pollutants- Seven major air pollutants(sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, photochemical oxidants, lead), lead to the highest amounts of air degradation.
Sulfur dioxide- Colorless, corrosive gas, immediately hurtful, can oxidize quickly
Nitrogen Oxides- Highly reactive gases formed when nitrogen in fuel or combustion air is heated to temps, above 650 degrees C.
Carbon monoxide- Colorless, odorless, nonirritating but highly toxic gas produced by incomplete combustion of fuel.
Aerosol- Any system of solid particles or liquid droplets suspended in a gaseous medium.
Particulate material- All atmospheric aerosols, whether solid of liquid
Volatile organic compounds- Organic chemicals that exist as gases in the air; plants make the most VOC’s.
Photochemical oxidants- Products of secondary atmospheric reactions driven by solar energy.
Ozone- Singlet, or atomic oxygen forms with another molecule of O2. Valuable shield for the biosphere.
Hazardous air pollutants(HAP’s)- Carcinogens, neurotoxins, mutagens, teratogens, and endocrine disrupters.
Toxic Release Inventory(TRI)- Best source of information about the HAP’s, a community knowledge pursuit.
Aesthetic degradation- Any undesirable changes in the physical characteristics or chemistry of the atmosphere.
Temperature inversions- Occurs when a stable layer of warmer air overlays cooler air, reversing the normal temperature decline with increasing height and preventing convection currents from dispersing pollutants.
Stratospheric ozone- Levels over the South Pole were dropping precipitously during Sept. and Oct. every year as the sun reappears at the end of the long polar winter.
Chlorofluorocarbons(CFC’s)- Humans release chlorine containing molecules into the atmosphere, the most dangerous of these.
Bronchitis- A persistent inflammation of bronchi and bronchioles, that causes mucus buildup, a painful cough, and involuntary muscle spasms that constrict airways.
Chronic obstructive lung disease- Irreversible, airways are permanently constricted and alveoli are damaged or even destroyed.
Synergistic effects- Where the injury caused by exposure to two factors together is more than the sum of exposure to each factor individually.
Acid precipitation- The deposition of wet acidic solutions or dry acidic particles from the air.
