The Inland Water Cyle Poster
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Department Energy and Water Supply Guideline for use About the poster The Inland Water Cycle poster (the poster) is part of the water cycle series and depicts a snapshot of Queensland’s vast inland water system, including the extensive groundwater (underground) aquifers. The water journey illustrated in the poster is an outline of the natural water cycle and many elements of inland water storage and use. The setting represents a generic inland landscape to allow educators to identify and name local features to establish a familiar context relevant to their audience. The department has produced two other educational posters—The Water Cycle (explaining the natural water cycle) and Total Water Cycle Management (explaining the water cycle in a coastal urban environment). These resources are available from the Department of Eenrgy and Water Supply (the department) website at <www. derm.qld.gov.au/waterwise>. The poster is also a useful resource for educators in coastal areas to assist in understanding the inland water cycle. > > Contents The poster aims to provide Queensland water educators 6 About this poster and teachers with a resource to build learning about: 6 Using the poster 6 the precious nature of water » General information 6 groundwater, including the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) 6 water sources, supply and storage in inland urban and » Water sources rural locations » The Great Artesian Basin 6 inland water use and reuse » Water use 6 sustainable water management. » Sustainability of inland water This guideline aims to assist water educators and teachers by offering suggestions and ideas for using the poster to 6 Curriculum links stimulate inquiry. Curriculum links to the Water: Learn it 6 Classroom activities for Life!* resources are included. * More information about Water: Learn it for life! can be found at: <www.derm.qld.gov.au/waterwise> Great state. Great opportunity. The poster is available free to Queensland councils swamps, lakes, rivers, billabongs and peat bogs— and schools. It can be downloaded in PDF format for they do not have to be continuously wet. Lake printing or copies can be ordered on the department’s Yamma Yamma on Cooper Creek in South West website at <www.derm.qld.gov.au/waterwise>. Queensland is often dry for years at a time. Water can flow into wetlands from rainfall, flooding, overland flow or groundwater seepage. Water is lost Using the poster from the wetland through evaporation, seepage to groundwater or transpired through vegetation. General information Wetlands slow down and filter out nutrients and sediments from run-off that would usually go into 6 Additional information and explanation of concepts creeks and rivers. They provide an important habitat presented in the poster, including the GAB, can be and breeding place for a diversity of wildlife not found in the Background Information for Teachers found in other areas of Australia, including migrating section of the Water: Learn it for life! resource. waterbirds. 6 Familiarity with the processes of the natural water 6 The vegetation which lines natural waterways, called cycle introduced in The Water Cycle poster will aid riparian vegetation, has many important functions. audience understanding of the water cycle elements It acts to trap sediment carried in water flow and presented in this poster. reduces the velocity of overland flood flows which 6 Inland Queensland includes Aboriginal heritage enables sediments carried in the water to settle places shaped by the original inhabitants and out. Riparian vegetation provides cooling shade for historical events of this landscape. Waterways, river the waterway which creates a habitat for birds, fish systems and riparian zones are considered to be and other wildlife and helps protect the waterway’s the lifeblood of Country for Aboriginal people. The banks from erosion during high water flow. Riparian Queensland Murray–Darling Committee (QMDC) vegetation should be retained along the full length Regional Caring for Country plan has significant of a watercourse in order to provide connectivity, information regarding Aboriginal people’s wildlife corridors and a buffer against the impacts of relationship with inland landscapes. This plan earthworks and agriculture. is available from the publications section of the 6 The practice of damming a waterway ensures a more committee’s website at <www.qmdc.org.au>. regular water supply in time of low rainfall. Dams 6 For older students it is important to explain that can also act as a method of removing sedimentation while the poster only shows water cycle processes from streams, as suspended solids in water flowing occurring in specific areas, they are occurring into the dam have time to settle out. Damming may throughout the entire landscape. Transpiration affect local fish populations and other aquatic life. occurs from any vegetation, including grazing Fishways built into dam or weir walls allow upstream grasslands, and from any surface water. evaporation and sometimes downstream access for fish breeding Surface water may be seeping ( ) into the infiltrating and feeding. groundwater across the entire landscape, not just in 6 The scale of this poster does not allow detailed the cut-away in the foreground. depiction of plant and animal life. Some of the plant 6 The poster shows evaporation followed by and animal life that would be seen in a catchment condensation then precipitation, all within a such as this can be explored in the Flora and Fauna relatively small area on the landscape. In reality of the Murray–Darling Basin poster available from precipitation normally occurs a significant distance the publications section of the Murray–Darling Basin from the point of evaporation. Association website <www.mdba.gov.au>. 6 In times of heavy rainfall, normally dry gullies and 6 Operators of wastewater treatment plants are watercourses in the upper catchment fill to their required to seek opportunities for beneficial capacity and excess water flows into rivers and reuse of treated wastewater where options exist. creeks. When run-off is high rivers break their banks The wastewater treatment plant in the poster is and flow over the land ( can be seen in the flooding positioned near both cropping and sporting fields, centre of the poster) sometimes meeting up with the where irrigation would provide reuse options for river further along its journey. The term ‘ephemeral’ treated wastewater (recycled water). Alternatively, is used to describe waterways that only flow for part treated wastewater may flow to a local waterway of the year. These ephemeral waters subside leaving or become water vapour through evaporation or replenished wetlands, along with isolated bodies of transpiration. water which form in-stream pools, billabongs and 6 Many inland residential properties may not be lagoons. connected to a central wastewater treatment plant. 6 Inland wetlands are diverse and productive areas Such properties are likely to have their own septic where land and water meet. Wetlands can be system for wastewater instead, as seen in the 6 Groundwater and surface water are linked systems— left-hand foreground. Discharged wastewater that they are interdependent. Surface water can infiltrate has been treated by a septic system may infiltrate past the plant root zone to become groundwater. into the ground or be taken up by plants through This interaction is a two-way process. Groundwater transpiration. In some communities a common may once again become surface water via springs effluent drainage scheme connects the septic and alluvial water may replenish streams if the water systems to transport the discharge for further table is above the level of water in stream beds. treatment. 6 Within Australia’s Aboriginal cultural heritage, the 6 The two cropping paddocks either side of the journey of water from underground to surface wastewater treatment plant show contour banks, springs or watering holes is depicted as an oral demonstrated by the regularly spaced brown lines. history of creation by the dreamtime story of the Contour banks are raised earth banks that follow Rainbow Serpent. the natural form of the land. Run-off containing 6 An aquifer is a deposit of permeable rock layers or both water and soil flows down the slope where the sediments that transmit groundwater freely. Not all contour banks slow its speed and redirect its path groundwater will yield a useable supply. Alluvial to a drainage line or creek system, slowing the aquifers are areas of water-bearing sand and gravel speed of the run-off and stopping it concentrating in typically deposited by lakes, streams and rivers. gullies which reduces soil erosion. Modern cropping 6 The penetration of water from alluvial aquifers to and grazing techniques that maximise vegetative deeper underground can continue through porous cover to protect soil are also very important in rock formations like sandstone layers, or through preventing erosion. cracks in rocks. Porous rocks store water and allow it to flow underground. Movement of water Water sources underground can be very slow. 6 For the purpose of illustrating an obvious cycle, the poster shows local evaporation, condensation and precipitation that reflectsconvection rainfall. In reality monsoonal or frontal rains are the main rain source for inland areas in northern Australia. Frontal rain is created when a mass of warm air meets a mass of colder air and rises. This cools the warm air creating condensation which forms clouds and then precipitation. Communities rely heavily on this rain to replenish surface water and recharge aquifers, ensuring continued water supplies. There will often be immediate growth of plants and greening of landscapes following rain and this can be seen in the poster with a slight green tinge where the precipitation has already passed as it moves forward from the horizon line. 6 Relief rainfall (orographic rainfall) is the third source 6 The term ‘artesian’ refers to a confined aquifer in of rain and occurs when warm air is forced to rise which the stored water is under pressure due to the over land features such as hills or mountains.