Water cycle especially designed for childrens

water cycle

1. Teaching the “Broken” Water
Cycle: A Reality Check
Cornelia Harris & Kim Notin
[email protected]; [email protected]

2. Research & Education based on Ecosystem Ecology

3. The water cycle in textbooks

4. Does this help students analyze their
water cycle?

5. How do you think the local water cycle
has been altered (or “broken”)?

6. We have changed nearly all of the links
in the water cycle

7. Why are forested streamflowslower in
the summer?

8. Changes in evaporation and
transpiration
•Transpiration is often
overlooked in importance
•About half of rain and snow
that falls on the Hudson
Valley is evaporated or
transpired before it reaches
the sea
•A mature tree transpires ~50
gallons of water a day in the
summer
Investigation:
stomata slides &
bags on trees

9. Water Budget
of a Leaf
Inputfrom stem
Output-transpiration
Use-water is used in the plant for
photosynthesis and movement of
important elementsQuestion: I wonder….


Hypothesis (statement that I can test):


Results:
Date bags put on branches:
Date bags collected:



Is your hypothesis correct? Explain.


1 2 3 4
Bag #
Amount of
water (mL)
Area of 2 leaves
(cm2) calculate
area with graph
paper
Amount evaporated per
square centimeter
(mL/cm2) divide column
2 by column 3

11. Changes in evaporation and
transpiration
•Modifying vegetation can
have huge effects on
streamflow

12. Changes in evaporation and
transpiration
•Half of the 800 trilliongallons of water used
each year in irrigation is “lost” to the air

13. Deforestation & Transpiration
2000: Rondonia region of western Brazil, images from NASA

14. Deforestation & Transpiration
2008: Rondonia region of western Brazil, images from NASA

15. Borneo
UNEP

16. Reduced
Infiltration
•Impermeable surfaces
have large impact
•Other changes to the
land surface affect
infiltration (plowing,
loss of leaf litter, etc.)

17. Reduced
Infiltration
Baltimore Ecosystem Study

19. Water quality
is also affected
by decreased
infiltration

20. Investigation:
infiltration rates
Where does the
rain in your
schoolyard go? Cover type 1:
Where does the rain go?
Prediction Result


Cover type 2:
Where does the rain go?
Prediction Result


Cover type 3:
Where does the rain go?
Prediction Result





Most of the water that falls on my schoolyard

goes_______________________________.

21. Orin your neighborhood? Name ______________________ Date __________
Mapping Your Neighborhood
What are the surfaces like in your neighborhood? Use this activity to find out!
Materials: pen or pencil, colored pencils/crayons, measuring cup, water

1. What is the difference between a permeable and an impermeable surface?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Describe your neighborhood. Does it have lots of grass or trees? Houses? Apartments?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

3. Are there more permeable or impermeable surfaces in your neighborhood?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

4. When it rains, where does the water go?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

Try this: Go outside and walk around your neighborhood. You don’t have to map the whole neighborhood, but try
to do one city block if you can. Look at all the features: trees, sidewalks, houses, streets, etc. Look for gutters or
rain grates on the side of the street.
Try to decide how much of your neighborhood is covered (in percent) by each of the following:
Grass/trees/other plants: _______________
Sidewalks/driveways/streets: _______________
Houses/other buildings: _________________
Other: ________________

Create a map of your neighborhood. Label your drawing carefully and use colored pencils/crayons to show
different types of surface cover. For example, you can use green for all the grass and trees, brown for the houses,
and black for the sidewalks and streets.












Finally, test the different surface types in your neighborhood. Get a measuring cup and fill it with one cup of water.
Pour the water on the different surfaces, one cup per surface. Fill out the chart below with your results!
Surface What happened to the water? Explain where the water went.
Grass/trees/other plants

Sidewalks/streets/driveways

Houses/other buildings

Other: _______________


Based on the information you collected, where does most of the water in your neighborhood go when it rains?
____________________________________

22. Impermeable
Permeable
“Runoff Worksheet”

23. “Runoff Worksheet”

24. Increased runoff
•~1 million dams around the
world
•Dams double the time it takes
for stream water to reach the
sea
•Dams hold back ¼ of the
sediment from reaching the sea
How many dams exist around
the world?

25. Lack of sediment
accumulation has severe
consequences for
wetlands and the
mainland
Wetlands around New Orleans, Louisiana
After Katrina
Before Katrina
NASA
www.edf.org

26. Dams often make
grotesque patterns
of water flow

27. Source: Swaney et.al 2006
Dams in
the
Hudson
River
Watershed
Dams of New York
http://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/42978.html

28. Normal Water Flow Has Been Obstructed by Dams

29. Several of the world’s great rivers no
longer reach the sea
•Nile (6X as much flow as
the Hudson)
•Colorado (0.9X)
•Murray-Darling (0.7X)
•Yellow (2.3X)
•Ganges-Brahmaputra
(59X)
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov
Lake Powell
Grand Canyon
Hoover Dam
Glen Canyon Dam
Lake Mead
Gulf of
California

30. Other ecological effects of dams
•Block migratory species
•May release water that is low
in temperature and oxygen
•Alter habitat up-and
downstream of the dam

31. Agricultural Water Use
Irrigation is the major consumptive use of water in
most parts of the world = 80%of all water
consumed in North America
Cost generally low since withdrawals are subsidized

32. Groundwater
depletion
•Happening around the
world in arid and semiarid
areas
•Declines can be rapid and
dramatic
•Dries up springs and small
streams

33. Ogallala Aquifer
•Before 1940s, water couldn’t be
accessed if it was below 70-80
feet
•Technology allowed wells to
extract water from more then
3,000 feet
•By 1990, sixteen million acres of
the high plains were irrigated with
water from Ogallala
•Some areas: more than 150 foot
declines
www.unwater.org

35. 3
rd
UN World Water Development Report, 2009

36. Humans even alter
precipitation!
•Humans affect fog
water inputs
•Air pollution may
affect rainfall
amounts
•Water quality (“acid
rain”)

37. Moving water across
watersheds
•Water doesn’t cross
watershed boundaries in a
textbook, but it does in the
real world
–New York City (390 billion
gallons/yr)
–Chicago (600 billion gallons/yr)
–Common for irrigation and
cities globally
•This translocatedwater can
move species around

38. Moving water across watersheds in bottles
•1978: 415 million gallons
•2001: 5.4 billion gallons (43 billion sixteen-
ounce bottles)... An increase of 1300%

39. Water ‘Footprint’
3
rd
UN World Water Development Report, 2009

40. Opportunities to teach the real water cycle
•Humans materially affect the water cycle
•Youare connected to the water cycle (and affect
it)
–Where does your drinking water come from?
–Where does your sewage go?
–How do local activities (even on the school grounds)
affect the water cycle?
–Are there concerns with how the water cycle is
treated locally?
–If so, how could the community do better?

41. Conclusions from these lessons
•The cycle is a “messy web” and humans have
large effects on all parts of the water cycle.
•This is just one example of how human
activities (partially) control the character of
the global ecosystem
•We need to exercise responsibility with this
control
•Fresh waters contain remarkable biodiversity
•That biodiversity is badly endangered

42. Resources
http://water.usgs.gov/data/

43. Familiar reasons “to care” about water
Source: www.4.bp.blogspot.com
Source: www.impactlab.com
Yann Arthus-Bertrand

44. The forgotten piece…

45. Fresh waters are
hotspots of
diversity (bars)
and
endangerment
(lines)
although fresh waters
cover <1% of the
Earth’s surface, they
contain 10% of known
animal species, and
1/3 of vertebrate
speciesDescribed species/million km
2
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
Imperiled species/million km
2
0
200
400
600
800
1000
All species
marine land freshwater
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
0
100
200
300
400
500
600Vertebrates

46. www.feow.orgSimilar to amphibians, invertebrates, mussels…

47. Freshwater organisms are more imperiled
than their terrestrial counterpartsBirds and mammals
(n=1182)
Extinct (GX, GH)
Critically imperiled (G1)
Imperiled (G2)
Vulnerable (G3)
Secure (G4, G5)
Freshwater fish
(n=798)
Freshwater insects
(n=1046)
Crayfish and mussels
(n=609)

48. Source:
http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/western/fishid/Orange-
throat__amp__Rainbo.html

49. Source: www.iz.carnegiemnh.org