Wednesday Week Four

...some questions...

1. The estimated volume of the 4-MCHM release in WV has been increased from 7,500 to 10,000 gallons. Why is the early underestimate surprising? Why is it not surprising?

2. What is distillation? How it is used to manage water quality challenges? What are the advantages to using distillation? What are the disadvantages?

3. How is dilution used to manage water quality? In what contexts is this an appropriate management tool? Is this generally, an effective method for managing drinking water?

4. How can minimizing evaporation be used to manage water quality?

5. What is nutrient pollution? What are the effects of augmenting nutrients in surface water systems? What is eutrophication? What is a dead zone and how does nutrient pollution contribute? What are the major point and non-point sources of nutrient pollution? 

6. How does the (natural) nitrogen cycle work? What do nitrogen fixing bacteria do? What do nitrifying bacteria do? What form of nitrogen do plants need? How do we affect the nitrogen cycle in modern agricultural systems to augment plant productivity?

7. What are the other important mechanisms for augmenting plant productivity in modern (post Green Revolution) agricultural systems? What is (was) the Green Revolution? What are the relative sustainabilities of these mechanisms? Where do we get P (geologically and geographically)?

Your assigned reading for Wednesday builds on Elizabeth Royte's look at legal drugs in post-treatment waters in Connecticut with a look at Italy and Cocaine in surface waters: a new evidence-based tool to monitor community drug abuse by Ettore Zuccato et al., published in 2005 in Environmental Health (peer-reviewed scientific journal). Slides from today are on Sakai.