1. Describe the pathways water can take upon falling from a cloud? What are artificial and natural variables that control these possible pathways?
2. Which pathways (above) are most responsible flash flooding? Groundwater recharge?
3. What are causes of temporal and spatial variation in evaporation rates?
4. What are causes of temporal and spatial variation in transpiration rates? How may these variations be reflected in other parts of the water cycle (for example, stream flow)? In different regions of the country?
5. How are streams and groundwater connected? How may the contribution groundwater to streams vary with setting and with time?
6. What is the difference between a gaining and losing stream? How can they be determined? How do their characteristics differ?
7. What are moisture content, K, P, and hp characteristics above, at, and below the water table?
8. Why is water movement above groundwater table more difficult to predict than below?
9. What is the difference between the water table and potentiometric surface?
10. What forms of energy are most important to groundwater? Why does groundwater flow?
11. What is Darcy’s Law? What does it indicate about controls on groundwater flow? Why isn't V in Darcy’s equation taken to mean groundwater velocity? What are the limitations of Darcy's Law?
12. How can K be determined? What are the advantages and disadvantages of different methods?
13. What is hydraulic head? Elevation head? Pressure head? Fluid pressure? How are they determined?
14. What are the differences in construction and purpose between a water table well and a piezometer?
15. How does groundwater flow through bedrock differ from flow through sediments?
16. What are groundwater recharge and discharge areas? How can they be identified?
17. What are the general hydraulic characteristics of different sediment and rock types?
18. How are n, Sr, and Sy related? What is effective porosity?
19. How does storativity differ from n? How does transmissivity differ from K?
20. Where does water come from in unconfined aquifers? Confined aquifers? Explain.
21. What setting/conditions would be associated with a region with a large amount of groundwater withdrawal induced subsidence?
22. How are total stress, effective stress, and fluid pressure related? How does pumping of an aquifer affect their values?
23.
What is a flow net? What are possible boundary conditions of a flow region?
With the same boundary conditions, how would flow systems differ in regions
where the geologic materials are homogeneous/isotropic versus heterogeneous/isotropic
versus homogeneous/anistropic?
Problems:
-Be familiar with the solving the types of problems we have done as a class or you have completed as homework/labs.
-Be
able to identify the purpose of any equation we have used and the parameters
included in the equation.
-Be
able to explain what the equations we have studied indicated about hydrogeologic
concepts.
---------------------test line--------------------------
24. What is the influence of topography and geology on groundwater flow systems? In which settings are local or regional or simple or complex or nested or ... flow systems most likely?
25. What are the basic hydrogeologic settings within the U.S.? How and why do their characteristics vary?
26. What is a stagnation point? What does the presence of a stagnation point indicate about a given lake?
27. How are groundwater wells constructed and installed? What is the difference between an observation well and a piezometer? What are nested piezometers?
28. What are groundwater recharge and discharge areas? How may the areal extent of these areas be determined? What is the importance of understanding the recharge/discharge setting to water resource/quality management?
29. What types of information is needed to develop a viable groundwater flow model? What methods can be used to gather the information needed? How do computer flow models solve for a groundwater flow net?
30. What is the effect of pumping on the water table/potentiometric surface in unconfined and confined aquifers?
31. How may pump tests be used to determine aquifer characteristics? (How do drawdown-time curves reflect different aquifer conditions?)
32. Why do drawdown curves differ between confined and unconfined aquifers?
33. What are characteristics of an aquifer prone to pollution?
34. How/why may different aquifers have different water chemistry characteristics?
35. Given a certain physical hydrogeologic setting at a site of contaminated groundwater, what chemical characteristics of the contaminant are important to know to understand and clean up the aquifer?.
36. What approach should be used to define a hydrogeologic problem, and design and carry out a solution?
37.
What should be considered in the development of a sampling scheme to understand
the water quality of groundwater and/or surface water?