CHAPTER 9 Concept Review
The Human Sphere: The Collapse of the Maya
1. When and where did the Maya civilization flourish?
2. Describe the link between the collapse of the Maya and their soil and water resources.
9.1 The Living Veneer: Soils
3. What is pedogenesis?
4. What are soil horizons? How do they form? How many are there? Do all soils have each of them?
5. Describe the major characteristics of each of the soil horizons.
6. What four major components do soils consist of?
7. On a small (broad) geographic scale, what is the single most important factor that determines what kinds of soils will form? Explain why it is important.
8. What other soil-
9. What factors contribute to soil loss and soil degradation? Which of these is the most important?
10. Compare tropical soils, subtropical desert soils, and temperate soils with regard to degree of weathering and leaching as well as topsoil depth.
11. What is contour plowing? What is terracing? How do they reduce soil erosion?
12. What are the 12 soil orders, and what characteristics are used to identify them?
13. What overall information can be gained from the color of soil? For example, what does a blue-
14. What kinds of ecosystem services do soils provide?
15. Why did New York City choose to buy and preserve temperate deciduous forest land rather than build a water filtration plant?
16. How are soils linked to climate change?
9.2 The Hidden Hydrosphere: Groundwater
17. What is a drought?
18. What is the Palmer Drought Severity Index, and how does it determine the degree of drought for a given region?
19. How does water get into the ground?
20. Compare the terms porosity and permeability. What do they relate to, and how are they different? Discuss these terms in the context of sand and clay.
21. Compare the terms aquiclude and aquifer. Where does each of them occur, and how are they different?
22. Compare a confined aquifer with an unconfined aquifer. What confines an aquifer?
23. Compare the zone of aeration with the zone of saturation. What is the capillary fringe, and where does it occur in relation to the zones of aeration and saturation?
24. Compare the terms infiltration and percolation. How are they different?
25. How does water enter an aquifer? How does water leave an aquifer?
26. What does a lake or stream tell us about the depth of the water table?
27. What is a perched water table?
28. What is a spring and how does it form? Is it an area of recharge or discharge for an aquifer? Explain.
29. What is the potentiometric surface? If a building is above the potentiometric surface of its water supply, will water flow from its faucets? Explain.
30. What is a well? How do some artesian wells differ from other wells?
31. Using the concepts of the potentiometric surface and the area of groundwater recharge, explain how water can gush from an artesian well.
9.3 Problems Associated with Groundwater
32. In the context of recharge and discharge, what is groundwater overdraft?
33. What is groundwater mining?
34. Discuss the problems resulting from groundwater overdraft. What are they, and what processes cause each of them?
35. What is fossil groundwater? Can you relate this term to groundwater mining?
36. How do aquifers become polluted?
37. What is a contaminant plume? What cleanup options are available once contamination occurs?
9.4 Geographic Perspectives: Water Resources under Pressure
38. What is a water footprint? Why does one apple take 70 liters of water to produce?
39. Why do golf courses have unusually large water footprints?
40. What is virtual water? Give examples.