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Lecture 3: Hydrologic Cycle and Watersheds
Key Questions
1. What % of the total water in Earth is fresh?
2. What is the hydrologic (or water) cycle?
3. What are the elements if the hydrologic cycle?
4. What is a watershed?
5. What defines the science of hydrology?
6. What is a WRIA?
7. What is a TMDL?
Lake Whatcom Watershed
The amount of water on Earth and in the atmosphere is constant (about 332.5 million cubic miles)
If all Earth's water (liquid, ice, freshwater, saline) was put into a sphere it would be about 860 miles in diameter
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html
The Moon diameter is 2160 miles
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterdistribution.html
The atmosphere holds less than 0.001% of the Earth’s water, which may seem surprising because water plays such an important role in weather.
About 50% of the water vapor in the atmosphere is within the first mile of altitude.
All the water in the atmosphere would form a depth of about 230 feet on Washington State.
The Hydrologic (or water) Cycle describes the distribution of water among the oceans, land and atmosphere.
Open up this web site (double click on the figure) and read:
1) A quick summary of the water cycle
2) Global water distribution
Evaporation is the transformation (phase change) of liquid water to water vapor (gas )and requires ENERGY
/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hyd/home.rxmlhttp://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
Condensation is the transformation (phase change) of water vapor (gas) into liquid water which releases ENERGY
/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hyd/home.rxmlhttp://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
Water vapor and liquid water move through the atmosphere by the jet streams and surface‐based circulations.
/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hyd/home.rxmlhttp://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
Droplets of condensed water can coalesce and fall to the Earth’s surface as rain, snow, hail, sleet, and freezing rain.
/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hyd/home.rxmlhttp://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
Runoff is the movement of water overland and in streams and rivers to the oceans.
/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hyd/home.rxmlhttp://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
Infiltration is the movement of precipitation into the Earth’s surface which can be stored in the soils or as groundwater.
/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hyd/home.rxmlhttp://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hyd/home.rxmlhttp://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
Transpiration is the transfer of water vapor to the atmosphere from vegetation (evaporation from stomata).
Hydrology is the science that examines the occurrence and movement of atmospheric, surface, and groundwater.
A Watershed is the area of land that drains to a single outlet and is separated from other watersheds by a topographic divide.
Also known as a catchment, river basin, or drainage basin
Hydrologists examine water in a watershed using a mass balance or water budget approach.
= Change in StorageInputs ‐ Outputs
Nooksack River basinoutlet
Middle Fork basin of the Nooksack River
outlet
Lake Whatcom Watershedoutlet
outlet
Austin Creek basin
ArcGIS is a software tool used to manage spatial data
Topographic map of southwestern Lake Whatcom region
Digital elevation map (DEM) map of southwestern Lake Whatcom region
Hillshade map of southwestern Lake Whatcom region
Austin Creek basin (green)
Austin Creek basin (green)
Austin Creek basin (8.25 sq‐mi)
Mississippi River basin – 1,256,591 sq-mi
Columbia River Basin – 260,452 sq‐mi
.
Canada
USA
Columbia River Basin260,462 sq‐miles
.
The Puget Sound watershed covers nearly 42,800 square kilometers and consists of over ten thousand rivers and streams that drain into the Sound.
16,525 square miles
http://wa.water.usgs.gov/data/realtime/adr/interactive/maps/NooksackSC_basin.pdf
Nooksack River Basin
About 2000 square kilometers or 800 square miles
Lake Whatcom WatershedArea is 36,270 acres (57 sq mi)
Watershed management in Washington State
Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIA)
WRIAs were formalized in 1998 under Washington State Water Management Act. Ecology was given responsibility for the development and management of these administrative and planning boundaries.
Lake Whatcom Watershed
Middle Fork Nooksack River Watershed
Diversion Pipeline(15.4 km)
7. Artificial inputs can affect streamflow
Diversion Off Diversion On (max ≈ 65 cfs)
Diversion Flow into Mirror Lake
Mirror Lake
Lake Whatcom Water Budget
inputs – outputs = change in storage
Inputs Volume (MG) % of totalDirect Precipitation 7063 18.2Diversion 2920 7.5Runoff 28717 74.2
OutputsWhatcom Creek 30359 77.1Hatchery 1002 2.5Georgia Pacific 807 2.0City of Bellingham 4145 10.5LW Water & Sewer District 232 0.6Evaporation 2831 7.2
Change in Storage ‐520
Water Budget for the 2007 water year
Photo by Margaret LandisLooking southeast down Lake Whatcom
intake .
Silver Creek
Runoff can deliver nutrients and pollutants to the lake
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/tmdl/index.html
Nearly 650 water bodies in the State of Washington fail to meet water quality standards.
The lake fails the state’s water quality standards (on TMDL list)
Lake Whatcom is on the state’s TMDL list
TMDL = Total Maximum Daily Load
A TMDL is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still meet water‐quality standards.
Lake Whatcom is on the state’s TMDL list
TMDL = Total Maximum Daily Load
A TMDL is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still meet water‐quality standards.
TMDL development includes the:
• Description of the sources of pollution in a water body
• Strategies to reduce or eliminate the pollution sources
Site 1
City Intake
Site 2
Site 3
Site 4
Lake Whatcom Water Quality Monitoring Sites
Site 1 Site 2
Site 3 Site 4
August 2007
