Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Questions 1-5 pg 229.

1) List the main reasons for water scarcity. The main reasons are hot deserts and low rainfall. Low rainfall, variations in climate, land degradations, population growth and water pollution.

2) What is a drought? What type of hardships do you think that a drought could cause if you were living in a village in a poor country such as Ethiopia. A drought is a period below average precipitation. A drought is when there is little or no rainfall and water scarcity in a large area. Hardships would be problems with washing and quenching thirst.

3) How does land degradation affect the supply of fresh water? It stops infiltration and creates run-off, thus transforming more fresh water from rain into salt water in the ocean.

4. a) What is El Nio? The strong winds that occur when the wind reverses over the Pacific.
b) Why does El Nino often cause drought in Australia? Wind blows away storm clouds and water vaper in the air from Australia.

5) Observe the map showing the global effects of El Nino in 1982-83.
a) What effects does El Nino have on the availability of fresh water? El Nino takes away a lot of water from south east asia and Tasmania.
b) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino. Indonesia; more air pollution and forest fires, Philippines; drought, Papua; drought and famine, Australia; drought.

1 comment:

Michael said...

Nathan, this needs to be broken out into separate lines, each question and each answer having their own space, like paragraphs. If you do this you may observe some of these questions have no answers...yet

mh