Basic Hydrology
Humanity's most important renewable resource.
What is fresh water?
The term for a body of rock or sediment that stores groundwater.
What is an aquifer?
This is how fresh water gets to Long Island.
What is precipitation (rain and snow)?
Most residents of Nassau County dispose of wastewater into these.
What are sewers?
The groundwater contaminant that prevents us from using the shallow Upper Glacial Aquifer as a drinking water source.
What is septic nitrate / nitrogen?
Most fresh water on planet Earth is found here.
In ice (ice sheets and glaciers).
The term that describes water that enters the groundwater system from the surface.
What is recharge or infiltration?
The source of all drinking water supplied on Long Island (Nassau + Suffolk).
What is groundwater / aquifers?
Most residents of Suffolk County dispose of wastewater into these.
What are septic systems?
This term describes the harmful impact of nitrogen pollution on water bodies.
What is eutrophication?
The largest source of accessible fresh water.
What is groundwater?
Hydrologists use the term "base flow" to describe this.
What is groundwater that feeds surface streams and lakes?
2/3 of groundwater on Long Island is pumped for this use.
What is lawn sprinkling / watering?
Most wastewater on Long Island is treated to this level.
What is secondary?
Population explosions of toxic plankton caused by nitrogen pollution.
What are HABs (Harmful Algal Blooms)?
Water + carbon dioxide
What is carbonic acid?
The generic term for any water that exits the groundwater system.
What is discharge?
Most drinking water on Long Island comes from this aquifer.
What is the Magothy Aquifer?
What is Tertiary?
The common name for the cocktail of organic chemicals called BTEX.
What is gasoline?
Water that returns to the atmosphere through the leaves of plants.
What is transpiration?
The upper level of saturation in an aquifer.
What is the water table?
The deepest aquifer on Long Island.
What is the Lloyd Aquifer?
The source of Milorganite, a nitrogen-rich fertilizer product.
What is municipal sewage sludge?
The term used to describe chemical pollutants that have been recently recognized as harmful and widespread.
What are emerging contaminants?