How does changing the Earth's surface (for example, by deforestation) change the pathway of water? How does it affect streams and rivers? Humans? Natural ecology?
What will be an ideal response?
Deforestation, assuming all the trees are removed, would eliminate the portion of the water cycle that involves evapotranspiration of water through the trees. This is likely to decrease the amount of water in the ecosystem because the water that would have been absorbed by the trees will now run off to the streams and rivers. This is likely to increase erosion and the quantity of nutrients in the streams and rivers in the short run. In the longer term, the area would become drier. The water that would have been evaporated from the trees is no longer available to contribute to the humidity, and the precipitation in the area will be reduced. Any organism that was dependent on particular levels of precipitation would be stressed or eliminated and not available for human use. The amount of water available for human use would be reduced.
You might also like to view...
Which surface water pollutant cannot be broken down or removed by natural processes?
A. arsenic B. oxygen-demanding C. bacteria D. oil
What is a 20-year flood? What will be an ideal response?
Detrital sedimentary rocks differ from chemical sedimentary rocks in that
A) detrital sedimentary rocks accumulate in depositional basins, while chemical sedimentary rocks do not B) detrital sedimentary rocks are composed of visible pieces of preexisting rocks C) chemical sedimentary rocks are composed of chemical elements, while detrital rocks are not D) chemical sedimentary rocks accumulate in the ocean, while detrital rocks do not
An earthquake epicenter is the ____
a. point where the seismograph is located b. point in the subsurface where movement along the fault occurs c. geographic center of a group of related earthquakes d. point on the surface directly above where a fault rupture occurs e. the strongest in a series of earthquake aftershocks