Download Groundwater Pollution Vocabulary

Groundwater Pollution Vocabulary
Animal wastes: Pet, livestock, or poultry wastes
Aquiclude: A formation of rock or sediment that acts as a barrier to groundwater flow.
Aquicludes are made up of low porosity and low permeability rock/sediment such as shale
or clay.
Aquifer: An underground geologic formation that stores and transmits water of sufficient
quantity to be a usable supply for residential or industrial uses.
Base flow: Streamflow fed by groundwater seepage into the stream
Bedrock: The solid rock beneath the soil or other unconsolidated material.
Best Management Practices (BMPs): structural, vegetative, or management practices
designed to control, prevent, remove or reduce pollution.
Capillary action: The means by which liquid moves through porous spaces in a solid, such as
soil and plant roots, due to the forces of adhesion, cohesion and surface tension.
Consumptive use: That part of water that is withdrawn that is evaporated, transpired by plants,
incorporated into products or crops, consumed by humans or livestock, or otherwise
removed from the local environment.
Contaminant: A substance of natural or human origin found in the air, water, or land that
causes harm.
Direct water use: Water that is used for drinking, cooking, cleaning, irrigating, etc.
Discharge: The volume of water that passes a given location within a given period of time,
usually recorded in cubic feet per second.
Domestic water use: Water used for household purposes, such as drinking, food preparation,
bathing, washing clothes, dishes, and dogs, flushing toilets, and watering lawns and
gardens.
Drawdown: A lowering of the groundwater table caused by over pumping.
Groundwater: Water that seeps downward and saturates the spaces between soil or rock
particles. The upper surface of the saturated zone is called the water table.
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Groundwater recharge: Inflow of water to an aquifer from the surface via infiltration of
precipitation.
Impermeable layer: A layer of solid material, such as rock or clay, that does not allow water to
pass through.
Impervious: Not allowing water to pass through.
Indirect water use: Human use of products that required water to grow or manufacture them.
Industrial: Having to do with the extraction of resources or the manufacture of goods, such as
steel, chemicals, paper and petroleum refining.
Infiltration: Movement of water from the land surface into the soil or groundwater.
Injection well: A well used for injecting wastes or wastewater directly into groundwater for
dispersal or injecting water into a designated aquifer for storage.
Irrigation: The process of supplying water to areas of land to make them suitable for growing
crops.
Land Use: The way humans use the land, such as industry, residential, commercial, recreation,
etc.
Leachate: Contaminated water leaking into the soil or groundwater from a landfill
Particle size: The diameter of suspended sediment or bed material. Particle-size classifications
are: [1] Clay -0.00024-0.004mm; [2] Silt – 0.004-0.062 mm; Sand – 0.062-2.0 mm; Gravel –
2.0 - 64.0mm
Percolation: The movement of water through the tiny spaces between rock and soil particles.
Permeability: The ability of a material to allow the passage of water. Permeable materials, such
as gravel and sand, allow water to move quicklt through them, whereas less permeable
material, such as clay, does not allow water to move freely.
Pervious: Allowing water to pass through or seep into.
Porosity: A measure of water-bearing capacity of sub-surface rock that is due to both the
number and size of pores and the extent which they are connected.
Porous: Containing pore spaces that allow water to move through.
Recharge: Water added to an aquifer; for example, rain water that seeps into the ground.
River: Flowing water of considerable volume, larger than a brook, stream or creek.
Runoff: Precipitation or snow melt that travels over the land surface to enter streams, rivers,
lakes and storm drains.
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Saturated zone: Area where water fill all the pore spaces between rock or soil particles,
typically called groundwater.
Seepage: Slow movement of water through small, cracks, pores, interstices, etc. of material in
or out of a body surface of water. Also describes the loss of water by infiltration into the soil from
a canal, ditches, laterals, watercourse, reservoir, storage facilities, or other body of water, or
from a field.
Septic system: System that includes a tank for holding household wastes that allows the
settling of solids prior to distribution to a leach field fro soil absorption.
Stewardship: take care of something
Surface tension: The attraction of molecules to each other on a liquid’s surface. Thus a barrier
is created between the air and the liquid.
Surface water: Water that is on Earth’s surface, such as in a stream, river, lake or reservoir.
Unsaturated zone: The zone immediately below the land surface where the pores contain both
water and air. The zone differs from an aquifer, where all the pore spaces are saturated with
water.
Water table: The top of the water surface in the saturated part of an aquifer.
Water use: Water that is used for a specific purpose, such as for domestic use, irrigation or
industrial processing.
Well: A bored, drilled, or a driven shaft, or a dug hole put down by any method for the purposes
of withdrawing water from an underground aquifer
Withdrawal: process of removing water from a ground or surface water source for use.
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