Land Cover Change

The water budgets of Berkeley, Ca., and Terre Haute, In., are greatly affected by their respective geographies, topographies, climates and

“Climate change” and its impact on basic water supply is at their foreground. It is an unfortunate reality that the terms of the Colorado Compact, the document dividing the Colorado’s waters, is an unworkable document. Based on allotments formulated in an “especially wet year,” the average volume now flowing does not meet the amounts specified in the agreement. Under the terms of the document, California receives the largest share, but with Southern California’s exploding population, this will be increasingly inadequate. Absent changes in both urban and agricultural use patterns, the deficit will only grow and further stress the state’s political and economic systems. Man’s mastery will thus prove illusory and short-lived and the original problems of water supply will return in highly magnified

The Four Mile Run watershed is one of the most heavily urbanized drainage basins in the Northern Virginia region. The 20 square mile watershed includes areas that lie in Arlington and Fairfax Counties and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church. A significant part of the watershed is covered with impervious surface, which prevents the natural process of infiltration and causes a greatly increased surface water runoff. Also, urbanization has replaced most of the watershed 's natural stream channels with an elaborate network of storm sewers. These sewers carry the increased volume of surface runoff quicker than it would in natural channels causing

The runoff carries pollutants such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediments into the Bay. In urban areas the standard city block creates five times more runoff than a forested area. About 30% of runoff in an urban area is evaporated, 55% stays runoff, and the other 15% soaks into the land with a variation of deep and shallow infiltration. About 40% of runoff in a forest evaporates, 10% stays runoff, and the extra 50% seeps into the ground with a variation of deep and shallow infiltration. The runoff is actually the fastest growing source of pollution for the Chesapeake

Heavy precipitation events that historically occurred once in 20 years are projected to occur as frequently as every 5 to 15 years by this late century. Short term droughts are expected to intensify in most regions. Longer term droughts are expected to intensify in larger regions in the Southwest. Flooding may intensify in many U.S regions. Climate change is affecting the groundwater availability also. Sea level rising and storms surges are expected to compromise the sustainability of coastal freshwater and

In discussing the Geosphere and Hydrosphere, it is best to group the two together, as they are intertwined immensely. It is also important to introduce the geology of the Assiniboine River Basin – as highlighted by Cummings et al, the Prairies contain a substantial amount of low-permeability quaternary till, which reduces recharge of valley aquafers (Cummings et al, 2012) further adding to the likelihood of flood risk of the floodplains as aquafers struggle to intake surface water. Moreover, the low-lying area of southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been drained for agricultural purposes, usually by with artificial means - creating depressions which cause small lakes and ponds from runoff and meltwater to fill, however, as discussed in the article by Szeto et al, extreme wet conditions, temporary drainage networks can connect outflow from ponds to streams (Szeto et al, 2015) which in turn would alleviate some fluvial processes to flood in certain regions. Due to the unprecedented climate conditions in the ARB region, the basin had experienced persistent cool temperatures previous to the April and May high precipitation months. As highlighted by Szeto et al, upper soil layer (0-47mm) remained frozen over the region and

This segment of White Creek is located the farthest away from major urban development, and, thus, might be an overall healthier system as a result. There is an overall proliferation of many different of species (colonizers, stabilizers, and riparian woody) that occur and thrive in various spatial configurations (partially determined by proximity to stream, elevation, and characteristics of the underlying substrate). There appears to be a substantial (s worthy of note that a large, above-ground sewage line ran perpendicularly over the river towards a sewage treatment plant some distance away. There were no signs of leakage or other issues that might compromise or affect the surrounding hydrology of the site.

Groundwater is one of the most important natural resource in the nation, specifically in the Central Valley. In California, many people are pumping a lot more water because of the California drought and groundwater is a good resource for the farmers to harvest their crops. However, the main issue today is that in the Central Valley is that the land is sinking faster and faster due to the demand of pumping more water from the ground. The ground sinking in California isn’t recent, but it has been going an ongoing issue for over decades. Therefore, the land sinking has background history, but many studies and researchers didn 't take it as a warning until recently, and as a result it has been getting worse. The land sinking occurring in the Central Valley can cause damages to our communities such as bridges and roads cracking and can even go as far as cracking irrigation canals. These damages can cost millions of dollars to recover and rebuilding damages. On the other hand, the ground sinking has already destroyed canal linings, which will cost millions of dollars to repair. With that being the case, imagine all the other damages that the ground sinking will cause and cost to fix them. For these reasons, the state of California needs to start finding possible solutions to prevent the ground sinking from further sinking and to prevent more damages to the Central Valley. Solutions that might include encouraging the community to

Associated activities may include installing drainage systems, grading slopes, ditching for storm drainages, and conduits for service utilities. The disturbance of natural patterns of runoff and rainwater infiltration through modified drainage can lead to the concentration of water flow at sites that previously only took direct rainwater infiltration; this can result in rapid forming cover-subsidence sinkholes (Waltham et al, 2005, p. 159). The many impervious surfaces used in modified drainage activities also impedes groundwater recharge, which can consequently lower the water

One of the recurring problems at Howard County is the large quantities of stormwater runoff that flow into nearby streams. This is due to meteorological factors and physical characteristics including: land use changes. The more impervious surfaces there are the more surface runoff there will be; thus, placing adverse effects upon the environment. To be exact, these stormwater runoffs carry car oils, fertilizers, pet waste, litter, and sediment to the Chesapeake bay. Hence, 20% of the chesapeake bay’s pollution is due to stormwater runoff. However, not only does storm water contribute to pollution, but it also harms wildlife and its environment, as well as cause floods, erosion, and property damage. To address such issue, Howard Community College

According to a recent report released by NASA, parts of central California are sinking due to excessive groundwater pumping for agricultural use. This sinking, or “subsidence,” is nothing new, but the recent acceleration is a result of California’s current drought: farmers are forced to rely on groundwater to water their crops, because the rain that has been falling is insufficient. Unfortunately, the water table has sunk so much that the land is sinking with it, and Tom Farr—a NASA researcher and co-author of the report—says that if the fine underground layers of soil and rock that used to contain water are compressed too far, they will lose their ability to retain water at all. The uneven nature of the subsidence also means that the surface

This paper discovers the water budget for Berkeley, California in comparison to Terre Haute, Indiana. The two cities precipitation differs throughout the twelve month calendar year where many of the heavy precipitation months are totally opposite. Berkeley California’s winters, where the majority of rain occurs and Terre Haute, Indiana where the rainfall is observed as consistently disseminated throughout the year evenly. This paper will also magnify geographic position, climate and elevation in contrast of the two cities that reflects the water budget outlined in Project 1: Water Balance defined in

Groundwater recharge is the process of water movement downward through a saturated zone under the force of gravity or in a direction determined by a hydraulic condition (Simmers, 1997). Natural recharge of groundwater may occur from precipitation, from rivers and canals, or from lakes. In arid and semi-arid areas, assessment of groundwater recharge is one of the key challenges in determining the sustainable yield of aquifers, as recharge rates are generally low in comparison with average annual rainfall or

HSPF is a mixed land use (e.g., forest, agriculture, urban) model, which represents the landscape as pervious, impervious, and reach segments (water bodies). Because HSPF is used for setting Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) development and TMDL implementation plans, the model must evaluate effectiveness with which agricultural and urban BMPs reduce runoff and associated water quality loadings to receiving water bodies. Depending on data availability and modeling objectives, different BMP modeling options are available to HSPF users. For explicit modeling of BMP effectiveness evaluations, the BMP Reach Tool (BRT) models urban BMPs. In general, , BMPs can either be modeled implicitly using pollutant removal fractions with BMPrac or explicitly using actual BMP representation and simulation with BRT. Both tools are applicable to urban and non-urban watersheds, but we recommend BRT for urban watersheds with sewer networks and green infrastructure systems (e.g., green roofs and permeable pavements). Note that BRT requires site-specific meteorological input data and specific BMP input data, but BMPrac does require less effort to model BMPs.

The patterns of biological diversity in rivers and streams among taxa vary on a spatial and temporal scale (Ligeiro et al. 2010; McGarvey and Terra 2015). Variations in stream ecology can be contributed to water quality, habitat, and history of disturbance (Lingeiro et al. 2010). Creeks and streams feed into rivers and other larger bodies of water, which provide food, water, and other commercial and recreational services as well as a home to an array of plants and animals which rely on clean water. The health of these smaller bodies of water can act as indicators for the health of the larger watershed.