ENVIROTHON PRACTICE AQUATICS GUIDE 2013 Kentucky Division of Water Nonpoint Source and Basin Team Section Frankfort, KY water.ky.gov Kentucky Division of Water Envirothon Practice: Aquatics Guide Table of Contents List of Figures ..................................................................................... iii List of Tables ...................................................................................... iii Introduction ........................................................................................ 1 Water Planet Overview .......................................................................... 2 An Overview of Kentucky's Waters ......................................................... 5 Why Water? ......................................................................................... 6 The United States Clean Water Act ......................................................... 7 Point Source Pollution ........................................................................... 7 Nonpoint Source Pollution (NPS) ............................................................ 8 Low Impact Development (LID)............................................................ 15 Water Quality Parameters ................................................................... 18 Temperature ............................................................................................ 18 pH........................................................................................................... 18 Specific Conductance ................................................................................. 19 Turbidity .................................................................................................. 19 Dissolved Oxygen ..................................................................................... 20 Hardness ................................................................................................. 20 Suspended Sediment ................................................................................. 20 Nutrients.................................................................................................. 21 Pathogens ................................................................................................ 21 Metals ..................................................................................................... 22 Emerging Contaminants ............................................................................. 23 Stream Habitat Assessment ................................................................. 25 Parameters for Habitat Assessment ...................................................... 25 Parameter 1: Epifaunal Substrate/Available Cover ......................................... 25 Parameter 2: Embeddedness ...................................................................... 26 Parameter 3: Velocity/Depth Regime ........................................................... 26 Parameter 4: Sediment Deposition .............................................................. 28 Parameter 5: Channel Flow Status .............................................................. 29 Page | i Kentucky Division of Water Envirothon Practice: Aquatics Guide Parameter 6: Channel Alteration ................................................................. 29 Parameter 7: Frequency of Riffles (or Bends) ............................................... 30 Parameter 8: Bank Stability ....................................................................... 30 Parameter 9: Bank Vegetative Protection ..................................................... 31 Parameter 10: Riparian Vegetative Zone Width ............................................. 31 Stream Order..................................................................................... 33 Going Up in Order ..................................................................................... 33 Benthic Macroinvertebrates ................................................................. 35 Bug Metamorphosis ................................................................................... 37 Macroinvertebrate Sampling ................................................................ 38 Definitions of Special Use Waters ......................................................... 40 Wetlands ........................................................................................... 42 Estuaries ........................................................................................... 45 Water Savers: 50 Ways to Live with Less .............................................. 47 Websites for Further Research and Study .............................................. 53 ii Kentucky Division of Water Envirothon Practice: Aquatics Guide List of Figures Figure 1: The Natural Water Cycle .................................................................... 3 Figure 2: The Human Water Cycle .................................................................... 4 Figure 3: Watersheds in Kentucky .................................................................... 5 Figure 4: Water Access ................................................................................... 6 Figure 5: Falling biodiversity ............................................................................ 6 Figure 6: Nonpoint Source Pollution .................................................................. 8 Figure 7: NPS Pollution moves across impervious pavement ................................ 9 Figure 8: Green roof in Louisville, KY .............................................................. 15 Figure 9: Pools, riffles, runs and glides ........................................................... 27 Figure 10: Depositional features .................................................................... 28 Figure 11: Types of stream bank shapes ......................................................... 30 Figure 12: Riparian zone ............................................................................... 32 Figure 13: Stream Order ............................................................................... 34 Figure 14: Macroinvertebrate Key .................................................................. 36 Figure 15: Bug Metamorphosis ...................................................................... 37 Figure 16: Sampling a riffle with a dipnet ........................................................ 38 Figure 17: Wild and Scenic River .................................................................... 40 Figure 18: How wetlands work ....................................................................... 43 Figure 19: Threats to estuaries ...................................................................... 46 Figure 20: How we use water ........................................................................ 47 List of Tables Table 1: Categories of Nonpoint Source Pollution ............................................. 10 Table 2: Substrate Particle Size ..................................................................... 26 iii Kentucky Division of Water Envirothon Practice: Aquatics Guide Introduction Congratulations on your decision to compete in this year’s Kentucky Envirothon Competition! The Kentucky Division of Water has developed this study guide to start you off on your research for the Aquatics Test. Please note: this guide does not contain all the answers to the Envirothon questions. Instead, this handout is a resource guide that contains a lot of information about aquatic topics that might be covered in the aquatics portion of the Envirothon Test. This information comes from a wide variety of sources including Kentucky Division of Water (KDOW), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US Geologic Survey (USGS), US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), as well as a wide assortment of other programs and online resources . If you want to excel during the Envirothon, you should do further research on your own. You will be tested on aquatics, wildlife, forestry, soils, and a current issue topic. You can always find out more on the current issue by referencing the Recommended Resources on the Canon North American Envirothon Page at www.envirothon.org . For aquatics, an additional list of helpful websites has been provided at the back of this guide. Be sure to expand your research to include your school or local library, in addition to other reputable web resources. We at KDOW hope that this test guide helps you in your journey toward understanding aquatics. Should you have any questions, please contact our Environmental Education Specialist Michelle Shane at [email protected] or 502-564-3410 ext. 4936. 1 Kentucky Division of Water Envirothon Practice: Aquatics Guide Water Planet Overview Sources: World Health Organization; World Water Day; NOAA Of all water on earth, 97.5% is salt water. The remaining 2.5% is fresh water, with some 70% frozen in the polar icecaps. The other 30% of fresh water is mostly present as soil moisture or lies in underground aquifers. In the end, less than 1% of the world's fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human uses. It is found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and in underground sources shallow enough to be tapped at affordable cost. Evaporation and precipitation make this water available on a sustainable basis. Fresh water resources are unevenly distributed: in terms of precipitation, there is a range from almost no rainfall in deserts to several meters per year