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ABLATION (glacial)--All processes, which include melting, evaporation (sublimation), wind erosion, and calving (breaking off of ice masses), that remove snow or ice from a glacier or snowfield. The term also refers to the amount of ice removed by these processes.
ACRE-FOOT--The volume of water necessary to cover one acre to a depth of one foot. Equal to 43,560 cubic feet or 325,851 gallons, or 1,233 cubic meters.
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT--sustainable-management practices for ecosystems and species that are responsive to uncertainties and ecological fluctuations, as well as being reversible and flexible.
ADJUDICATION--judicial process to determine the extent and priority of the rights of all persons to use water in a river or aquifer system.
AGRICULTURAL DROUGHT--see drought.
ALABASTER--A fine-grained massive variety of gypsum that may be white, pink, gray, or even black. It can be polished and made into attractive objects of art.
ALBEDO--portion of incoming solar radiation that is reflected by a surface.
ALLUVIAL AQUIFER--An aquifer formed by material laid down by physical processes in a river channel or on a floodplain.
ALLUVIAL PLAIN--A level, gently sloping, or slightly undulating land surface produced by extensive deposition of alluvium, usually adjacent to a river that periodically overflows its banks.
ALLUVIUM--Unconsolidated clay, silt, sand, or gravel deposited during recent geologic time by running water in the bed of a stream or on its floodplain.
ALPHA RADIATION--radiation consisting of positively charged helium nuclei. Alpha-emitting substances in natural water are mainly radium and radon which are members of the uranium and thorium series. See also radioactivity.
ALTITHERMAL PERIOD--period of high temperature, particularly the one from 8000 to 4000 B.P. (before the present era), which was apparenlty warmer in summers, as compared with the present, and with the precipitation zones shifted poleward. Also called the hypsithermal period.
AMPHIPOD--An invertebrate animal, member of the biologic order Amphipoda. Amphipods are small segmented crustaceans. Some amphipods are nonpigmented cave-adapted species.
ANALYTICAL MODEL--model that uses closed-form mathematical solutions to the governing equations applicable, for example, to ground-water flow and transport processes.
ANASTOMOSIS--A network of tubular passages or holes in a cave or in a solution-sculpted rock. A complex of many irregular and repeatedly connected passages. A labyrinth.
ANHYDRITE--A mineral usually associated with gypsum and of nearly the same chemical composition. Anhydrite is distinguished from gypsum in that it lacks water, as its name implies.
ANISOTROPY--condition of having different properties in different directions.
APPROPRIATION--under Kansas Law, this is the right to use water for a beneficial use or the acquisition of such a right gained through the process of diverting water and putting it to a beneficial use.
APPROPRIATIVE RIGHTS--appropriative water rights, generally found in western states, are created by diversion of water and putting it to beneficial use. Appropriative water rights have a priority based on the date of first usage. In times of shortage, junior appropriators are cut off while senior appropriators receive their full allotment.
APPURTENANT--existing as part of a broader proerty right. A surface water right may exist as part of the rights associated with ownership of land bodering a body of water or a ground water right may exist as part of the rights associated with ownership of the overlying land.
AQUICLUDE--An impermeable layer of rock that does not allow water to move through it. Some shales, for example, have such low permeability that they effectively form an aquiclude.
AQUIFER--A geologic formation (or one or more geologic formations) that is porous enough and permeable enough to transmit water at a rate sufficient to feed a spring or a well. An aquifer transmits more water than an aquitard. Sandstone beds and the Ogallala Formation are some of the best water-producing layers in Kansas and are used extensively for private and municipal water supplies.
AQUIFER (HYDRAULIC) DIFFUSIVITY--ratio of aquifer transmissivity to storativity (or hydraulic conductivity to specific storage); it indicates how fast a transient change in head will be transmitted throughout the aquifer system.
AQUIFER SYSTEM--heterogeneous body of interbedded permeable and poorly permeable material that functions regionally as a water-yielding unit; it comprises two or more permeable beds separated at least locally by confining beds that impede vertical ground water movement but do not greatly affect the regional hydraulic continuity of the system; includes both saturated and unsaturated parts of permeable materials.
AQUIFER YIELD--Maximum rate of withdrawal that can be sustained by an aquifer. See YIELD.
AQUIFUGE--body of earth material which is impervious to water and unabsorbtive.
AQUITARD--A part of a geologic formation (or one or more geologic formations) that is of much lower permeability than an aquifer and will not transmit water at a rate sufficient to feed a spring or for economic extraction by a well.
ARID--Said of a climate characterized by dryness, variously defined as rainfall insufficient for plant life; less than 10 inches (254 mm) of annual rainfall.
ARTESIAN AQUIFER--An aquifer in which ground water is confined under pressur significantly greater than atmospheric pressure. This pressure, called artesian pressure, is generally due to the weight of water at higher levels in teh same zone and is sufficient to cause water to rise above the level of the aquifer in a well or natural fissure. An artesian aquifer is bounded above and below by confininf beds of less permeable rock. Synonym: confined aquifer.
ARTESIAN GROUND WATER--see confined ground water.
ARTESIAN WELL or ARTESIAN SPRING--A well or spring that taps ground water under pressure beneath an aquifuge or aquiclude so that water rises (though not necessarily to the surface) without pumping. If the water rises above the surface, it is known as a flowing artesian well.
ARTIFICIAL RECHARGE--deliberate act of adding water toa ground water aquifer by means of a recharge project, also the water so added. Artificial recharge can be accomplished via injection wells, spreading basins, or in-stream projects.
ATMOSPHERE--(1) The gaseous portion of the planet. (2) Standard unit of pressure representing the pressure exerted by a 29.92-inches (760-mm) column of mercury at sea level at 45 degrees latitude and equal to 14.696 pounds per square inch (psi) or 101.325 kilopascals (An).
ATOMIC NUMBER--see isotope.
AVAILABLE MOISTURE (OR MOISTURE)--Portion
of water in a soil that can be absorbed by plant roots. It is the amount
of water released from a wet soil between field capacity and the permanent
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BANK STORAGE--change in storage in an aquifer resulting from a change in stage of an adjacent surface-water body.
BASEFLOW (OR BASE FLOW)--Streamflow derived mainly from ground water seepage into the stream.
BASEFLOW NODE--artificial point located in the channel centerline of a stream for the purpose of allocating a proportional amount of the baseflow to be considered when evaluating a new application in Kansas Ground-water Management Districts 2 (Equus Beds) and 5 (Big Bend) to appropriate water from a proposed point of diversion located within 2 miles of the node.
BASE LEVEL--In general, the lowest point in the water table in a given area. Water in the area flows toward this destination by gravity and hydrostatic pressure.
BASE MAP--A map that shows only essential geolgraphic references (such as roads, towns, section lines, etc.) on which additional information is plotted: for example, a topographic map on which geologic information is recorded.
BASIN--see drainage basin.
BASIN YIELD--Maximum rate of withdrawal that can be sustained by the comlete hydrogeologic system in a basin without causing unacceptable declines in hydraulic head anywhere in the system or causing unacceptable changes to any other component of the hydrologic cycle in the basin. See YIELD.
BED--A layer of rock in the earth. Also the bottom of a body of water such as a river, lake, or sea.
BEDDING--The solid rock that underlies any unconsolidated sediment or soil. Limestone and sandstone are common types of bedrock in Kansas.
BEDROCK--The solid rock that underlies any unconsolidated sediment or soil. Limestone and sandstone are common types of bedrock in Kansas. Most Kansas bedrock is in formations of Cretaceous age or older.
BENEFICIAL USE--use of water, such as domestic, municipal, agricultural, mining, industrial, stock watering, recreation, wildlife, artificial recharge, power generation, or contamination remediation that provides a benefit. Water rights not put to beneficial use are subject to forfeiture. Historically, very few uses of water have been declared nonbeneficial by courts.
BETA RADIATION--radiation consisting of electrons or positrons. See also radioactivity.
BICARBONATE--The anionic constituent HCO3 that has a single negative charge as dissolved in water. Nearly all of the alkalinity in water is composed of bicarbonate. An alkalinity value (reported as mg/L CaCO3) for a water can be converted to the equivalent bicarbonate concentration in mg/L by multiplying by 1.219.
BIOCHEMICAL CYCLE--chemical interactions among the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. Examples are the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and hydrologic cycles.
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY (BIODIVERSITY)--Variety of living organisms at all levels, from genes to species, populations and communities, including the variety and hierarchy of habitats and ecosystems that contain different biological communities.
BIOMASS--Total dry organic matter or stored energy content of living organisms that is present at a specific time in a defined unit (community, ecosystem, crop, etc.) of the earth's surface.
BIOME--Large, easily recognized community unit formed by the interaction of regional climates with regional biota and substrates. Examples include the tundra biome, the grassland biome, the desert biome, etc.
BIOSPHERE--Portion of earth and its atmosphere that can support life. The part (reservoir) of the global carbon cycle that includes living organisms (plants and animals) and life-derived organic matter (litter, detritus). The terrestrial biosphere includes the living biota (plants and animals) and the litter and soil organic matter on land, and the marine biosphere includes the biota and detritus in the oceans.
BIOSTROME--A layer of rock composed of the remains of various fossilized animals, such as crinoids and coral.
BIOTA--see carbon cycle.
BLACKJACK--A synonym of sphalerite, especially a dark variety. The term was originated by miners who regarded sphalerite as an impish intrusion ("jack") of worthless material in lead ores.
BLUFF--A high and steep bank or cliff.
BOD--Biochemical Oxygen Demand. A measure of the amount of oxygen required to neutralize organic wastes.
BOUNDARY CONDITION--mathematical expression of a state of the physical system that constrains the equations of the mathematical model.
BRACHIOPOD--A marine invertebrate that has two differently shaped valves and equilateral symmetry.
BRACKISH WATER--see saline water.
BREAKDOWN--Rock (often found in heaps) that has collapsed from the walls and ceiling of a cave.
BRECCIA--Profusely cracked, broken rock cemented by calcite or other minerals. In the Tri-State mining district, which includes southeastern Kansas, breccia consisting of chert and limestone is often found with deposits of lead and zinc ore.
BRINE--Highly salty water, commonly with more than 10,000 milligrams per liter of chloride. In parts of Kansas, ground water may be naturally salty. Brine also is regularly produced along with oil in Kansas.
BRUNDLAND COMMISSION--see WCED.
BRYOZOAN--Tiny animal that lives in colonies in seawater and occasionally in freshwater. Belongs to the phylum Bryozoa.
BUTTE--A hill with steep sides that usually stands
away from other hills.
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CALCITE--The mineral calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is the main component of limestone and one of the most common minerals in Kansas.
CALCIUM--The element Ca that occurs as a cation with a double positive charge when dissolved in water; the major dissolved constituent constituting hardness in water.
CALCIUM-BICARBONATE TYPE--The most common chemical type of freshwater in Kansas; the constituents with the largest concentrations in this type of water are calcium (Ca) and bicarbonate (HCO3).
CALIBRATION (model application)--process of refining the model representation of the hydrogeologic framework, hydraulic properties, and boundary conditions to achieve a desirable degree of correspondence between the model simulation and observations of the ground-water system.
CALICHE--A type of calcite-cemented sandstone that forms in the soil of dry regions. Generally impure and soft.
CAMBRIAN PERIOD--The interval of geologic time between 545 and 495 million years ago.
CAPILLARY FRINGE--unsaturated zone immediately above the water table containing water in direct contact with the water table.
CAPILLARY POTENTIAL--see soil-water potential.
CAPTURE--water withdrawn artificially from an aquifer derived from a decrease in storage in the aquifer, a reduction in the previous discharge from the aquifer, an increase in the recharge, or a combination of these changes. The decrease in discharge plus the increase in recharge is termed capture. Capture results in reduced surface flows.
CARBONATE--The anionic constituent CO3 that has two negative charges as dissolve din water or present in a mineral.
CARBONATE MINERAL--A class of minerals. Calcite is calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Dolomite is calcium-magnesium carbonate [CaMg(CO3)2]. Calcite is a main constituent of many Kansas limestones. The mineral dolomite, less common, is the principal mineral in the rock dolomite, also sometimes referred to as a dolostone.
CARBON CYCLE--all parts (reservoirs) and fluxes of carbon; usually thought of as a series of the four main reservoirs of carbon interconnected by pathways of exchange. The four reservoirs, regions of the earth in which carbon behaves in a systematic manner, are the atmosphere, terrestrial biosphere (usually includes freshwater systems), oceans, and sediments (includes fossil fuels). Each of these global reservoirs may be subdivided into smaller pools ranging in size form individual communities or ecosystems to the total of all living organisms (biota). Also defined as carbon exchanges from reservoir to reservoir by various chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes.
CARRYING CAPACITY--(1) The maximum number of organisms that an area or habitat can support without reducing its ability to support the same number of organisms in the future; (2) the amount of biological matter the system can yield, for consumption by animals or humans, over a given period of time without impairing its ability to continue producing, or the number of animals it can support without being degraded; (3) the maximum population of a given species that can be supported indefinitely, in a particular region, allowing for seasonal and random changes, without any degradation of the natural resource base that would diminish the maximum population in the future; (4) the maximum intensity of use an area will continuously support under a management program without inducing a permanent change in the biotic environment.
CATENA--sequence of soils of about the same age, derived from similar parent material and occuring under similar climatic conditions, but having different characteristics due to variation in relief and in drainage.
CAVE--A natural cavity or chamber beneath the surface of the earth that is large enough to permit entry to people.
CAVE PEARL--Aspeleothem consisting of concentric layers of calcite usually formed in pools of water. A small particle, as it is turned by moving water, will have calcite deposited on its surface. Pearls range in diameter from 1 millimeter to several centimeters.
CENOZOIC ERA--One of the four large divisions of geologic time, it includes two geologic period, from about 65 million years ago to the present.
CERCLA--Comprehensive Environment Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. Also known as Superfund. The Act gave EPA the authority to clean up abondoned, leaky hazardous waste sites.
CERTIFY (also see perfect)--under Kansas water law, the actions of a water user to bring an appropriation right into final form by the completion of diversion works and application of water to the proposed use in accordance with the approved water-right application.
CHALK--A soft form of limestone that is not well cemented and thus is often powdery and brittle.
CHAT--Small pieces of crushed rock and gravel. May be used for paving roads and roofs.
CHERT--Commonly called flint, this is a fine-grained, noncrystalline sedimentary rock made up of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert layers are commonly found in eastern Kansas, occurring as irregular beds or rounded nodules within limestone formations. Chert is harder than limestone and is thus more resistant to erosion. The chert-topped hills in the Flint Hills resulted from this differential erosion of the landscape. Chert has the same chemical formula as the mineral quartz.
CHLORIDE--The anionic form of the element chlorine (Cl) that has a single negative charge as dissolved in water.
CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS (CFCs)--family of inert gases, including CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-13. These chemicals are used in refrigeration, air conditioning, packaging, and insulation or as solvents or aerosol propellants. These gases are of concern for two reasons. First, in the upper stratosphere they result in ozone degradation. Second, they are also potent greenhouse gases. CFCs are currently regulated under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
CLAY--A very fine grained material, smaller than silt (clay has a diameter of less than 1/256 mm). Clay is formed by the weathering and breaking down of rocks and minerals.
CLEAVAGE--The breaking of a mineral along its crystallographic planes, mirroring crystal structure. Cleavage is one of the characteristics used to identify minerals.
CLIMATE--Generalized weather at a given place on earth over a fairly long period (usually decades); a long term average of weather. Compare weather.
CLIMATE CHANGE--Long-term fluctuations in temperature, precipitation, wind, and all other aspects of the earth's climate. External processes, such as solar-irradiance variations, variations of the earth's orbital parameters (eccentricity, precession, and inclination), lithosphere motions, and volcanic activity, are factors in climatic variation. Internal variations of the climate system also produce fluctuations of sufficient magnitude and variability to explain observed climate change through the feedback processes interrelating the components of the climate system.
CLIMATIC YEAR--12-month period used in the collection of precipitation data. Climatic years begin July 1 and end the following June 30, and are designated by the calendar year in which the climatic year ends.
CLIMAX--in ecology, the final stable or equilibrium stage of development that a community, species, flora, or fauna attains in a given environment. The major world climaxes correspond to biomes.
COLUMN--A secondary deposit of calcite or other minerals that extends from ceiling to floor, usually created by the joining of a stalactite and a stalagmite.
CONCEPTUAL MODEL--interpretation or working description of the characteristics and dynamics of the physical system.
CONCHOIDAL--Used to describe a smoothly curving fracture surface of certain rocks and minerals that is either concave or convex.
CONCRETION--A hard, compact mass of mineral material formed when minerals in water are deposited about a nucleus (such as a leaf or shell or other particle) forming a rounded mass whose composition or cement is usually different form the surrounding rock.
CONE OF DEPRESSION--A cone-shaped depression in the water table around a well or a group of wells. The cone is created by withdrawing ground water more quickly than it can be replaced.
CONFINED AQUIFER--An aquifer that is bounded above and below by confining layers. Because of the pressure created in a confined aquifer, the water level in a well drilled into a confined aquifer will rise above the top of the aquifer and, in some instances, above the land's surface.
CONFINED GROUND WATER--ground water lying beneath an aquiclude or an aquifuge. Confined ground water is artesian if the water levels in wells are above the top of the aquifer.
CONFINING BED--A layer of relatively impermeable (i.e., incapable of transmitting fluids) material overlying an aquifer.
CONGLOMERATE--Rock that consists of nonsorted, cemented particles usually containing sand and gravel. Resembles concrete.
CONJUNCTIVE OPERATION OR USE--operation of a ground-water basin in coordination with a surface-water system. Often the purpose is to artificially recharge the basin during years of above-average precipitation so that the water can be withdrawn during years of below-average precipitation, when surface supplies are below normal.
CONSERVATION--Management of water resources so as to eliminate waste or maximize efficiency of use.
CONSERVATION OF MATTER--see mass balance.
CONSERVATION STORAGE--storage of water in a reservoir for later release for useful purposes such as municipal and industrial water supply, water quality, or irrigation.
CONSUMPTIVE USE--use that makes water unavailable for other uses, usually by permanently removing it from local surface or ground-water storage as the result of evaporation and/or transpiration. Does not include evaporation losses from bodies of water.
CONTACT--A plane or surface between two different types, or ages, or rock. The contact is sometimes marked by a bedding plane, and sometimes caves are eroded or dissolved out of the rock at a contact. Caves formed in this manner are known as contact caves.
CONTACT SPRING--A type of gravity spring whose water flows to the land surface from permeable rocks that are underlain by less permeable rocks, preventing the downward movement of water.
CONTAMINANT PLUME--zone of polluted ground water downgradient from a point source of pollution.
CONTINUOUS CROPPING--one crop planting following soon after harvest, without seasonal fallowing.
CONTOUR CROPPING--use of tillage that follows the contours of a slope, rather than up and down a slope. It helps prevent erosion and runoff.
CRETACEOUS PERIOD--The interval of geologic time between 142 and 65 million years ago. It is named after the Latin word for chalk ("creta") because of the English chalk beds of this age. The well-known chalk of Kansas was deposited late in the Cretaceous, about 60 million years ago. The Dakota Formation is another famous Cretaceous deposit in Kansas, frequently called the Dakota sandstone because the most prominent beds--those that cap the hills and stand out as cliff formers--are sandstones.
CROP RESIDUE--organic material that remains in the field following harvest.
CROP ROTATION--successive planting of different crops in the same field over a period of years, usually to reduce the pest population or to prevent soil exhaustion.
CROPPING PATTERNS--yearly sequence and spatial arrangement of crops and falow within a given area. The fallow crop may be natural or planted.
CROSSBEDDING--A series of thin, inclined layers in a larger body of rock (usually sandstone) that form a distinct angle to the principal horizontal bedding plane. Formed by currents of water or wind, crossbedding is found in dune, stream channel, or delta deposits.
CUBIC FOOT PER SECOND (cfs)--Rate of discharge representing a volume of one cubic foot (28.317 x 10-3 m3) passing a given point during 1 second. This rate is equivalent to approximately 7.48 gallons (0.0283 m3) per second.
CUESTA--A hill with a steep slope on one side and a gentle slope on the other. Such topography characterizes part of eastern Kansas, which is called the Osage Cuestas. Cuesta is the Spanish word for cliff.
CURIE (Ci)--unit in reporting radioactivity in water, defined as 3.7 ? 1010 radioactive disintegrations per second (the approximate specific activity of 1 gram of radium in equilibrium with its disintegration products). This unit is very large for the purpose of expressing natural radioactivity levels, and for this reason such data are often expressed in picocuries (pCi or curies ? 10-12). See radioactivity.
CURRENT METER--device for measuring water velocity consisting of a propeller that turns at a rate dependent on the water velocity.
CURVE NUMBER--Natural Resources Conservation
Service-developed technique to estimate storm runoff from watersheds with
various kinds of soil and land use.
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DARCY's EQUATION OR LAW--formula stating that the flow rate of water through a porous medium is proportional to the hydraulic gradient. The factor of proportionality is the hydraulic conductivity.
DEAD STORAGE RESERVES--see ground-water storage reserves.
DELPHI METHOD--method of seeking consensus among a panel of evaluators on questions that involve value judgments of relative worth.
DELTA--A deposit of sand and other sediment, usually triangular in shape. Deltas form at the mouths of rivers where the water flows into the sea.
DENDROCHRONOLOGY--dating of past events and variations in the environment and the climate by studying the annual growth rings of trees. The approximate age of a temperate forest tree can be determined by counting the annual growth rings in the lower part of the trunk. The width of these annual rings is indicative of the climatic conditions during the period of growth; wide annual rings signify favorable growing conditions, absence of diseases and pests, and favorable climatic conditions, while narrow rings indicate unfavorable growing conditions or climate.
DEPLETION TIME--time indicating how long it would take the watershed or the ground-water system to dry out if surface runoff or ground-water replenishment (recharge) were stopped from the instant t onward and if outflow was maintained at the rate it had at that instant. The depletion time is defined as V(t)/Q(t), where V(t) equals volume of water stored and Q(t) equals outflow at time t. Depletion times of surficial waters are usually of the order of hours to weeks. They may run into months or years if the river basin includes large lakes. Depletion times of aquifers are usually of the order of tens to hundreds, and often thousands of years. As a consequence, rivers react quickly to precipitation and to the abstraction of water, whereas ground-water systems react very sluggishly to these events.
DEPOSITION--The laying down of sediment such as sand, soil, clay, or gravel by wind or water. It may later be compacted into hard rock and buried by other sediment.
DEPTH TO WATER--The depth of the water table below the earth's surface.
DESERIFICATION--Progressive destruction or degradation of vegetation cover especially in arid and semiarid regions bordering existing deserts. Overgrazing of rangelands, large-scale cutting of forests and woodlands, drought, and burning of extensive areas all serve to destroy or degrade the land cover. The climatic impacts of this destruction include increased albedo leading to decreased precipitation, which in turn leads to less vegetation cover; increased atmospheric dust loading could lead to decreased monsoon rainfall and greater wind erosion and/or atmospheric pollution.
DETRITUS--Parts of dead organisms and cast-off fragments and wastes of living organisms.
DEVONIAN PERIOD--The interval of geologic time between about 417 and 354 million years ago.
DEW POINT--Temperature at which condensation occurs for a given amount of water vapor.
DIP--In geology, dip is the angle at which a rock layer is inclined relative to the horizontal. In Kansas most rock layers dip, or get deeper, as you move from east to west.
DISCHARGE--Movement of ground water from the subsurface to the land surface, usually from a spring or to a marsh, river, or stream.
DISCHARGE AREA--An area where ground water is lost naturally from an aquifer through springs, seeps, or hydraulic connection to other aquifers. The water leaving the aquifer is called discharge.
DISSOLVED OXYGEN (DO)--amount of oxygen gas dissolved in a given quantity of water at a given temperature and atmospheric pressure. It is usually expressed as a concentration in parts per million or as a percentage of saturation.
DISTRIBUTED-PARAMETER MODELS--models that account for spatial variations in parameters throughout the system.
DIVERSION--physical removal of surface water from a channel. Also the act of bringing water under control by means of a well, pump, or other device for delivery and distribution for a proposed use.
DIVIDE (DRAINAGE DIVIDE)--Boundary between one drainage basin and another.
DOLOMITE--The mineral dolomite [CaMg(CO3)2] is similar to calcite (CaCO3) and is the principal mineral in the rock dolomite, also called dolostone. The rock dolomite is cavernous in some states but is so rare and so thin in Kansas that no caves have been found in it.
DOMESTIC USE--Water used for drinking and other purposes by a household such as from a rural well.
DOWNGRADIENT--In reference to the movement of ground water, the "downstream" direction from a point of reference (e.g., a well).
DRAINAGE AREA--Of a stream at a specified location is that area, measured in a horizontal plane, enclosed by a topographic divide from which direct surface runoff from precipitation normally drains by gravity into the stream above the specified location.
DRAINAGE BASIN--Hydrologic unit consisting of a part of the surface of the earth covered by a drainage system made up of a surface stream or body of impounded surface water plus all tributaries. The runoff in a drainage basin is distinct from that of adjacent areas. A river basin is similarly defined.
DRAWDOWN--Lowering of the ground-water surface or the piezometric pressure caused by pumping, measured as the difference between the original ground-water level and the current pumping level after a period of pumping.
DRIPSTONE--Secondary mineralization in caves formed by dripping water, as opposed to flowing water (see flowstone). Dripstone includes stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, and columns (columns can also involve flowing water).
DROUGHT--(1) interval of time, generally of the
order of months or years in duration, during which the actual moisture
supply at a given place rather consistently falls short of the climatically
expected or climatically appropriate moisture supply (meteorological drought);
(2) a condition that occurs only when available soil moisture is inadequate
to meet evaporative demand by plants (agricultural drought); (3) a period
of below-normal streamflow (hydrological drought).
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EARTH SUMMIT-see UNCED.
ECOSYSTEM--Biological communities that interact with the physical and chemical environment as a unified system, while simultaneously interacting with adjacent ecosystems and with the atmosphere.
ECOLOGICAL OR ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS--processes among and within the various biological, chemical, and physical components of an ecosystem that consist of specific activities or flows, such as nutrient cycling, biological productivity, hydrology, and sedimentation; dynamic and sequential interactions that characterize the evolution of the system, such as exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization; and the cumulative effect of these processes and interactions, such as the ability of ecosystems to support life. Ecological functions that are currently perceived to support and protect the human activities of production and consumption or affect overall well-being in some way, thus impacting on human welfare and even existence.
ECOTONE--transitional zone in which one type of ecosystem tends to merge with another ecosystem.
EFFLUENT--Any substance, particularly a liquid, that enters the environment from a point source. Generally refers to wastewater from a sewage-treatment or industrial plant.
EFFLUENT STREAM--Stream or reach of a stream whose flow is being increased by inflow of ground water. A gaining stream.
EL NI?O--Irregular changes in the ocean currents off the west coast of South America that result in prolonged increases in sea-surface temperatures along the coast of Peru and in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean. El Ni–o has been linked to distant atmospheric features having diverse effects, such as the Indian monsoon, shrimp production in Louisiana, and wildland fires in the United States.
ELEVATION HEAD--see hydraulic head.
ENVIRONMENT--Sum of all external conditions affecting the life, development, and survival of an organism.
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY--widely espoused goal that seeks to improve human needs and ensuring that the sinks for human wastes are not exceeded, in order to prevent harm to humans. Environmental sustainability means natural capital must be maintained, both as a provider of inuts ("sources"), and as a sink for wastes. This means holding the scale of the human economic subsystem to within the biophysical limits of the overall ecosystem on which it depends. Environmental sustainability needs sustainable production and sustainable consumption. On the sink side, this translates into holding waste emissions within the assimilative capacity of the environment without impairing it. On the source side, harvest rates of renewables must be kept within regeneration rates. Nonrenewables cannot be made fully sustainable, but quasi-environmental sustainability can be approached for nonrenewables by holding their depletion rates equal to the rate at which renewable substitutes can be created. See also sustainable development.
EOCENE EPOCH--The interval of geologic time between approximately 58 and 37 million years ago.
EPHEMERAL FLOW--when water flows in a channel only after precipitation.
EPILIMNION--warm, less-dense top layer in a stratified lake. Compare hypolimnion.
EQUUS BEDS--The sediments containing an important source of ground water in parts of Harvey, McPherson, Reno, and Sedgwick counties. The Wichita municipal well field is located in the Equus Beds.
ERA--A unit of geologic time usually lasting hundreds of millions of years. Eras are divided into smaller units of geologic time called periods.
EROSION--The wearing away, breaking down, or dissolving of rock and other material by wind or water. The eroded material is often carried off and deposited in other areas. Types of erosion include solution, corrosion, and abrasion. Most limestone and gypsum caves are formed mainly by solution. Shelter caves and many sandstone caves are formed by abrasion.
ESCARPMENT--A steep slope or cliff.
ESTUARY--The seaward end or widened funnel-shaped tidal mouth of a river valley where freshwater comes into contact with seawater and where tidal effects are present.
EVAPORATION--Process of liquid water becoming water vapor, including vaporization from water surfaces, land surfaces, and snow fields, but not from leaf surfaces. Compare with transpiration.
EVAPORITE--A sedimentary rock made up mostly of minerals deposited when a saline solution (such as seawater) evaporates. Gypsum, salt, and anhydrite are evaporites left behind when ancient Kansas seas dried up.
EVAPOTRANSPIRATION--A collective term for water that moves into the atmosphere from evaporation from land or water and from transpiration from plants.
EXTERNALITIES--social benefits and social costs not included in the market price of an economic good.
EXTINCT--No longer existing. Many types or species
of animals, such as dinosaurs, lived in the past but are found no where
in the world today. They are extinct.
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FALLOW--period during which land is left to recover its productivity (reduced by cropping) mainly through accumulation of water, nutrients, attrition of pathogens, or a combination of all three. During this period, the land may be bare or covered by natural or planted vegetation. The term may be applied to the land itself or to the crop growing on it.
FAULT--A fracture or break in underground rock usually resulting from tectonic stresses along which one or both sides move. Movement along faults may produce earthquakes; most faults are relatively minor with movement involving only a few feet.
FEEDBACK MECHANISM--sequence of interactions in which the final interaction influences the original one. Also see positive feedback and negative feedback.
FIELD CAPACITY--quantity of water held back by soil or rock against the pull of gravity. It is sometimes limited to a certain drainage period (2 or 3 days), thereby distinguishing it from specific retention, which is not limited by time.
FINITE-DIFFERENCE METHOD--numerical technique for solving a system of equations using a rectangular mesh representing the aquifer and solving for the dependent variable in a piece-wise manner.
FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD--numerical technique for solving a system of equations using an irregular triangular or quadrilateral mesh representing the aquifer and solving for the dependent variable in a continuous manner.
FIRM YIELD--see safe yield.
FIRN--material that is transitional between snow and glacier ice. It is formed from snow after passing through one summer melt season and becomes glacier ice after its permeability to liquid water falls to zero.
FLOODPLAIN OR FLOOD PLAIN--Land bordering a stream, built up of sediments from overflow of the stream and subject to inundation when the stream is at flood stage.
FLOW DURATION CURVE--graph of stream discharge versus the percentage of time that the flow exceeds that stream discharge.
FLOWING ARTESIAN WELL--see artesian well.
FLOWSTONE--Speleothems formed by flowing water. Includes bacon (banded flowstone that resembles bacon and forms along sloping cave walls), rimstone dams, travertine, and columns.
FLUX--refers to the rate of flow; it is the quantity of material or energy transferred through a system or a portion of a system in a unit time and is called mass flux. If the moving matter is a fluid, the flux may be measured as volume of fluid moving through a system in a unit time and is called volume flux. For most applications, we desire the know the flux per unit area of a system rather than the flux of the entire system; the flux per unit area is called the flux density.
FLUX DENSITY--see flux.
FOOD CHAIN--Sequence of organisms, each of which uses the next lower member of the sequence as a food source.
FORAMINIFER--Any protozoan belonging to the subclass Sarcodina, order Foraminifera, characterized by the presence of a test of one to many chambers made up of secreted calcite (rarely silica or aragonite) or of agglutinated particles.
FORMATION--A body of rock identified by physical characteristics and stratigraphic position and mappable at the earth's surface or traceable in the subsurface. The formation is the fundamental unit in lithostratigraphic classification. Formations can be subdivided into members or lumped together into groups.
FOSSIL--The outline, traces, or body part of a plant or animal that has been preserved in rock. Animal tracks preserved in rocks are also fossils.
FOSSILIFEROUS--Describing a rock in which fossils are profuse. Many of Kansas limestones are studied for such fossils as crinoids, brachiopods, and other marine invertebrates. In the chalk beds of western Kansas, large fossils of reptiles and fish of the Cretaceous Period are found.
FRACTAL--object that has variation that is self-similar at all scales, in which the final level of detail is never reached and never can be reached by increasing the scale at which observations are made.
FREE GROUND WATER--unconfined ground water whose upper surface is a free water table.
FRESHWATER--Water containing only small quantities (generally less than 1,000 milligrams per liter) of dissolved materials.
FUSULINID--Tiny, single-celled marine animals
that became extinct at the end of the Permian Period. Although fusulinids
were single-celled, their shells are large enough to see with the naked
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GAGING STATION--Site on a stream, lake, reservoir, or other body of water where direct systematic observations of hydrologic data are obtained.
GAIA HYPOTHESIS--proposal that the earth is alive and can be considered a system that operates and changes by feedback of information between its living and non-living components. The idea that life on earth helps sustain its own environment.
GAINING STREAM--A stream that receives ground water discharge from the zone of saturation.
GALENA--Lead sulfide (PbS), one of the lead ores mined in southeast Kansas.
GAMMA RADIATION--Radiation consisting of electromagnetic wave-type energy similar to X-rays. See also radioactivity.
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS (GCMs)--Large-scale computer models used to predict the response of the climate system to a carbon dioxide (CO2) increase or other stresses. Generally, the atmosphere, land, and oceans are divided into a number of discrete layers, with each layer consisting of a two-dimensional grid of thousands of points. The model then solves equations for the transport of heat, momentum, moisture (in the atmosphere and land), and salinity (in the ocean) on this three-dimensional grid. The typical resolution is 4? latitude by 5? longitude.
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS)--Computer-based systems for storing and manipulating geographic (spatial) information.
GEOLOGY--The study of the earth, what it's made of, and how it changes over time.
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES--Features produced by deformation or displacement of the rocks, such as folds, faults, and fractures.
GHYBEN-HERZBERG PRINCIPLE--principle that accounts for the existence of a body of freshwater floating on sea water within an aquifer because of the different densities. Generally speaking, freshwater extends to a depth about forty times the height that the freshwater table is found above sea level. Conversely, a lowering of the freshwater table by 1 ft (0.3 m) will cause sea water to rise 40 ft (12.19 m) within the aquifer.
GLACIAL DRIFT--Sediment and rocks transported by glaciers and deposited directly on the land or indirectly in streams, lakes, and oceans. It consists of a heterogeneous mixture of clay, silt, sand, gravel, and boulders ranging in size and shape.
GLACIER--A moving mass of ice.
GOUR--Small rimstone found on stalagmites and flowstones often measuring less than 1 inch in diameter.
GRAVEL PACK--Coarse sand and gravel placed in the annular space between the borehole and the well casing in the vicinity of the well screen. The purpose of the gravel pack is to minimize the entry of fine sediment into the well, stabilize the borehole, and allow the flow of ground water into the well.
GRAVITATIONAL POTENTIAL--see soil-water potential.
GREAT BEND PRAIRIE--The area south of the big bend in the Arkansas River; the region includes Stafford and Pratt counties and parts of Barton, Edwards, Kingman, Kiowa, Pawnee, Rice, and Reno counties.
GREENHOUSE EFFECT--Popular term used to describe the roles of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other trace gases in keeping the earth's surface warmer than it would be otherwise. These "radiatively active" gases are relatively transparent to incoming short wave radiation but are relatively opaque to outgoing long wave radiation. The latter radiation, which would otherwise escape to space, is trapped by these gases within the lower levels of the atmosphere. The subsequent reradiation of some of the energy back to the surface maintains surface temperatures higher than they would be if the gases were absent. There is concern that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and manmade chlorofluorocarbons, may enhance the greenhouse effect and cause global warming.
GREENHOUSE GASES--Gases, including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and ozone, that insulate the earth, letting sunlight through to the earth's surface while trapping outgoing radiation. Also see greenhouse effect and trace gas.
GROSS ALPHA ACTIVITY--see radioactivity.
GROSS PRIMARY PRODUCTION (or productivity)--total amount or weight of organic matter created by photosynthesis over a defined time period (total product of photosynthesis). Abbreviated GPP.
GROUND WATER--Underground water that is generally found in the pore space of rocks or sediments and that can be collected with wells, tunnels, or drainage galleries, or that flows naturally to the earth's surface via seeps or springs.
GROUND-WATER BASIN--Geologically and hydrologically defined area that contains one or more aquifers that store and transmit water and will yield significant quantities of water to wells.
GROUND-WATER-FLOW MODEL--application of a mathematical model to represent a site-specific ground-water flow system.
GROUND-WATER FLOW SYSTEM--set of ground-water flow paths with common recharge and discharge areas. Flow systems are dependent on both the hydrogeologic characteristics of the soil/rock material and landscape position. Areas of steep or undulating (hummocky) relief tend to have dominant local-flow systems (discharging in nearby topographic lows such as a pond or stream) Areas of gently sloping or nearly flat relief tend to have dominant regional-flow systems (discharging at much greater distances than local systems in major basin topographic lows or oceans.)
GROUND-WATER HYDROGRAPH--see hydrograph.
GROUND-WATER MINING--pumping ground water from a basin at a rate that exceeds safe yield, thereby extracting ground water taht had accumulated over a long period of time.
GROUND-WATER OVERDRAFT--pumpage of ground water for consumptive use in excess of safe yield.
GROUND-WATER STORAGE--(1) quantity of water in the saturated zone, or (2) water available only from the storage as opposed to capture.
GROUND-WATER-STORAGE RESERVES--sum of live and dead storage reserves; live storage reserves are situated above the aquifer outlet or discharge area and can be depleted by natural discharge drainage and also reovered by pumping; dead storage reserves can be recovered only by pumping after the live reserves have been exhausted.
GROUP--A formal stratigraphic unit made up of two or more contiguous or associated formations. A group name is made up of a geographic name and the word "group."
GYPSUM--A soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate
with water (CaSO4•H2O). Gypsum can be found as rock
gypsum, elenite, alabaster, or satin spar. Some secondary cave formations
can consist of gypsu, especially in the Red Hills.
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HALF-LIFE--The time it takes for one-half of a given amount of a radioactive isotope to decay to a stable daughter product.
HARD WATER--See hardness.
HARDNESS--(1) Water-quality parameter that indicates the level of alkaline salts, principally calcium and magnesium, and expressed as equivalent calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Hard water is commonly recognized by the increased quantities of soap, detergent, or shampoo necessary to lather. (2) In mineralogy, the degree of hardness of a mineral is an aid in identification. Geologists have assigned numbers to the hardness of several minerals; in this hardness scale, softer minerals are assigned a low mineral and the harder minerals a higher number.
HEAD--see hydraulic head.
HEAD LOSS--see hydraulic head.
HECTARE (ha)--One hectare equals 2.47 acres. One square kilometer equals 100 hectares. One square mile equals 259 hectares.
HELICTITES--Twisting, wormlike speleothems similar to strawtites but controlled by surface tension rather than by gravity.
HETEROGENEOUS--material property that varies with the location within the material. See also homogeneous.
HIGH PLAINS AQUIFER--In Kansas, three, hydraulicaly connected but distinct aquifers: the Ogallala, Great Bend Prairie, and Equus Beds aquifers. In general, the Ogallala Formation is made up of unconsolidated sand, gravel, silt, and clay deposited by streams that flowed east from the Rocky Mountains during the Miocene Epoch. The Great Bend Prairie and Equus Beds aquifers are also composed of silt, clay, and gravel deposits left by streams flowing through central Kansas, but these deposits are generally younger (Pleistocene and Holocene) than the Ogallala. In some areas, these aquifers are in contact with each other and thus form one continuous aquifer.
HOLOCENE--most recent epoch of the Quaternary period, covering approximately the last 10,000 years.
HOLOCENE EPOCH--The interval of geologic time between approximately 10,000 years ago and the present.
HOMOGENEOUS--material is homogeneous if its hydrologic properties are identical everywhere.
HUMAN CAPITAL--see natural capital.
HUMAN-MADE or REPRODUCIBLE CAPITAL--economic assets, such as buildings, equipment, plants and machinery, tools, financial assets, skilled labor, that are produced by the economy and capable of contributing to long run economic potential or welfare, usually measured in terms of the present value of the income, or welfare, it generates.
HUMUS--decomposed organic material.
HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY--Factor of proportionality in Darcy's equaiton relating flow velocity to hydraulic gradient having units of length per unit of time. A property of the porous medium and the fluid (water content of the medium.
HYDRAULIC CONTINUITY--property of the rock framework on a given time scale whereby a change in hydraulic head in any point of the region can cause a head change in any other point of the same region by means of pressure transfer through the rock pores and within a time interval measurable at that time scale.
HYDRAULIC GRADIENT--slope of the water table or potentiometric surface. The change is static head per unit of distance in a given direction. If not specified, the direction generally is understood to be that of the maximum rate of decrease in head.
HYDRAULIC HEAD OR (STATIC) HEAD--Height that water in an aquifer can raise itself above an (arbitrary) reference level (or datum), and is generally measured in feet. When a borehole is drilled into an aquifer, the level at which the water stands in the borehole (measured with reference to a horizontal datum such as sea level) is, for most purposes, the hydraulic head of water in the aquifer. This term defines how much energy water possesses. Ground water possesses energy mainly by virtue of its elevation (elevation head) and of its pressure (pressure head). See also hydrostatic head. When ground water moves, some energy is dissipated and therefore a head loss occurs.
HYDRAULIC POTENTIAL--see soil-water potential.
HYDRAULICALLY CONNECTED--A condition in which ground water moves easily between aquifers that are in direct contact. An indication of this condition is that the water levels in both aquifers are approximately equal.
HYDROGEOLOGY--The study of ground water and its relationship to geology. Also sometimes known as geohydrology.
HYDROGRAPH--graph showing stage, flow, velocity, or other characteristics of water with respect to time. A stream hydrograph commonly shows rate of flow; a ground-water hydrograph shows water level or head.
HYDROLOGIC BUDGET OR BALANCE--Accounting of the inflow to, outflow from, and storage in a hydrologic unit such as a drainage basin, aquifer, soil zone, lake, or reservoir; the relationship between evaporation, precipitation, runoff, and the change in water storage, expressed by the hydrologic equation.
HYDROLOGIC CYCLE--The complete cycle that water can pass through, beginning as atmospheric water vapor, turning into precipitation and falling to the earth's surface, moving into aquifers or surface water, and then returning to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration.
HYDROLOGIC EQUATION--equation that balances the hydrologic budget.
HYDROLOGICAL DROUGHT--see drought.
HYDROLOGY--The study of the characteristics and occurrence of water, and the hydrologic cycle. Hydrology concerns the science of surface and ground waters, whereas hydrogeology principally focuses on ground water.
HYDROSTATIC HEAD--height above a standard datum of the surface of a column of water or other liquid that can be supported by the (hydro) static pressure at a given point.
HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE--Pressure exerted by water at any given point in a body of water at rest.
HYPOLIMION--bottom layer of cold water in a lake. Compare epilimnion.
HYPORHEIC ZONE--interstitial habitat penetrated by riverine animals and extending to no more than a few meters below the water/substratum interface in streams, in most cases centimeters away from the river channel. This biologically active zone is in direct and frequent contact with both the stream and the ground water. The hyporheic zone may be regarded as an ecotone between the surficial streambed (approximately top 15 cm) and the true ground waters that constitute the phreatic zone. Being a transition zone, the spatial extent of the hyporheic zone is not precisely delineated.
HYPISTHERMAL PERIOD--period about
4,000 to 8,000 years ago when the earth was apparently several degrees
warmer than it is now. More rainfall occurred in most of the subtropical
desert regions and less in the central midwest United States and Scandinavia.
It is also called the altithermal period and can serve as a past climate
analog for predicting the regional pattern of climate change should the
mean earth surface temperature increase from an increase in atmospheric
carbon dioxide concentration.
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IGNEOUS ROCK--Rock that forms when a hot liquid (magma) cools and hardens.
INDUCED INFILTRATION OR INDUCED RECHARGE--Recharge to ground water by infiltration, either natural or human-made, from a body of surface water as a result of the lowering of the ground-water hydraulic head below the surface-water level.
INDUSTRIAL USES--Water used for a wide range of purposes by industries, including cooling water for electrical power generation, manufacturing, food preparation, washing of wastes, etc. The quality needed ranges substantially depending on the use.
INFILTRATION (SOIL)--Movement of water from the ground surface into the soil.
INFLUENT STREAM--Stream or reach of stream that loses water into the ground. Also known as a losing stream.
INFRARED RADIATION--see longwave radiation.
INJECTION WELL--Well used for injecting water or other fluid into a ground-water aquifer. See also artificial recharge.
INORGANIC--Not made of or derived from living matter. Minerals are inorganic.
INSOLATION--solar radiation incident on a unit horizontal surface at the top of the atmosphere. It is sometimes referred to as solar irradiance. The latitudinal variation of insolation supplies the energy for the general circulation of the atmosphere. Insolation depends on the angle of incidence of the solar beam and on the solar constant.
INSTREAM USE--use of water that does not require withdrawal or diversion from its natural watercourse; for example, the use of water for navigation, recreation, and support of fish and wildlife.
INSTRUMENTAL VALUE--value, or "worth," of something in terms of an "instrument" for satisfying individuals, needs and preferences; for example, the instrumental value of biodiversity derives from the role that the mix of micro-organisms, plants, and animals plays in providing ecological services and resources vital to human welfare.
INSURGENCE--A sinkhole opening that permits flowing surface water to be captured and transported underground, to later reemerge as a spring (resurgence). Includes piracy openings.
INTEGRATED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT--process of formulating and implementing a course of action involving natural and human resources in a watershed, taking into account the social, political, economic, and institutional factors operating within the watershed and the surrounding river basins and other relevant regions to achieve specific social objectives. Typically this process would include (1) establishing watershed- management objectives, (2) formulating and evaluating alternative resource-management actions involving various implementation tools and institutional arrangments, (3) choosing and implementing a preferred course of action, and (4) thorough monitoring of activities and outcomes, evaluating performance in terms of degrees of achievement of the specified objectives. See also watershed approach.
INTERBASIN TRANSFER--physical transfer of water from one watershed to another.
INTER-GENERATIONAL EQUITY--extent to which the economic opportunities available to the current generation are also available to future generations; for example, whether activities undertaken by the current generation that lead to irreversible loss of biodiversity and increasing ecological scarcity today will affect adversely future generations' welfare, and even threaten their existence.
INTERMITTENT FLOW--surface water flowing only during periods of seasonal runoff.
INTERRUPTED FLOW--water flowing alternatively on the channel surface in some stream stretches and disappearing underground in others.
INTRA-GENERATIONAL EQUITY--extent to which the economic opportunities available to the current (or a future) generation are equally available to all members of that generation; for examle, whether the gains from irreversible los of biodiversity and increased ecological scarcity are enjoyed disproportionately by some human populations and societies, and the costs borne disproportionately by others.
INTRINSIC PERMEABILITY--quantitative measure of fluid-transmitting ability of a porous medium that is related to the size and interconnectedness of the void openings. See also permeability.
INTRINSIC VALUE--having value, or "worth," in itself, regardless of whether it serves as an "instrument" for satisfying individuals' needs and preferences; for example, many more arguments for preserving biodiversity are based on the premise that organisms should be "saved" from extinction because all living entities have a fundamental intrinsic worth.
INTRUSION--An igneous rock formed from magma that pushed its way through other rock layers. Magma often moves through rock fractures, where it cools and hardens.
INTRUSION OF SALTWATER--The movement of saltwater from bedrock into the overlying High Plains or alluvial aquifer. The source of the saltwater is dissolution of rock salt in Permian rocks in the subsurface.
IRRIGATION USE--Water applied to the soil surface by center pivots, ditches or other means, or to the soil subsurface by tubes to add to the water available for plant growth.
ISOHYET--line that connects points of equal rainfall.
ISOPLETH--line that connects points of equal amounts of a quantity such as evapotranspiration, chloride concentration, etc.
ISOPOD--An invertebrate aminal in the biologic order Isopoda. Isopods are small segmented crustaceans, the best known of which are sow bugs and other land-dwelling species. In caves aquatic isopiods are often studied because many are troglobitic and depend on caves for survival.
ISOTHERM--Line that connects points of equal temperature.
ISOTOPE--An isotope is an element that has a specific number of neutrons in its nucleus. Neutrons, along with protons and electrons, are the building blocks of atoms. Protons and neutrons form the nucleus of the atom, and electrons orbit around the nucleus. The number of protons in an element is constant; if you change the number of protons, you end up with a different element. Neutron numbers, however, can vary, creating the different isotopes of a given element. For example, oxygen always has 8 protons, but it can have 8, 9, or 10 neutrons. All naturally occurring elements have isotopes. Some isotopes are unstable (radioactive) and decay to stable isotopes. The isotopes of an element have slightly different properties, owing to their mass differences, by which they can be separated.
ISOTROPIC--said of a medium whose properties
are the same in all directions. See anistropy.
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JOINT--In geologic terms, a natural fracture, usually vertical, in a rock. Joints are common in limestones, and caves usually form along joints and bedding planes.
JUNIOR APPROPRIATOR--holder of a surface- or ground-water right that was acquired subsequent to other water rights on the same stream or aquifer.
JURASSIC PERIOD--The interval of geologic
time between approximately 205.7 and 142 million years ago. In Kansas,
rocks of Jurassic age, about 175 million years old, underlie much of the
western part of the state and crop out in two locations in Morton County
(see discussion of Point of
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KANSAS WATER APPROPRIATION ACT--act that established the general principle that all water within the state is dedicated to the use of the people of the state subject to the control and regulations of the state as set forth in the act. The law provides that water appropriated must be put to beneficial use, and that among appropriators, the first one in time should be the first in right. This act was enacted on June 28, 1945.
KARST--A terrain or type of topography generally underlain by soluble rocks, such as limestone, gypsum, and dolomite, in which the topography is chiefly formed by dissolving the rock; karst is characterized by sinkholes, depressions, caves, and underground drainage.
KARST WINDOW--A sinkhole by which an underground stream can be observed and studied.
KDA--Kansas Department of Agriculture. The main offices of the KDA, including the Division of Water Resources, are in downtown Topeka.
KDHE--Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The main offices of the Division of Environment and laboratories of KDHE are currently at Forbes Field in Topeka.
KRIGING--estimation method that assumes that the
best estimate is a weighted average of one or more sample points.
Kriging is the method of analysis by which optimal values of the weights
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LACUSTRINE--pertaining to or formed in a lake or lakes.
LAMINAR FLOW--type of flow in which the fluid particles (i.e. small "parcels" of fluid, bigger than molecules but small in relation to the passageway through which the fluid is flowing) all move smoothly more or less in the same direction as the bulk of the fluid. Laminar flow typically occurs when fluid is moving very slowly through small openings (like capillary tubes) or in very thin sheets.
LAPSE RATE--rapidity with which temperature decreases with altitude. The normal lapse rate is approximately 3.5 degrees F per 1,000 feet (6.5 degrees C per kilometer) change in altitude. The dry adiabatic lapse rate is about 5.4 degrees F per 1,000 feet (9.8 degrees C per kilometer), and the wet adiabatic lapse rate varies between 2 and 4 degrees F per 1,000 feet (3.6 to 6.9 degrees C per kilometer).
LATENT HEAT--energy transferred from the earth's surface to the atmosphere through the evaporation and condensation processes.
LAVA--Hot molten rock (magma) that has reached the earth's surface after flowing out of volcanoes or cracks in the earth.
LENTIC SYSTEM--nonflowing or standing body of freshwater, such as a lake or pond. Comapre lotic system.
LIMESTONE--Composed mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), it is one of the most common rocks in the state. Like most of the rocks found at the surface in the state, it is a sedimentary rock.
LITHOLOGY--(1) The description of rocks on the basis of physical characteristics, such as color and mineral composition. (2) The physical character of a rock.
LITTER--undecomposed plant residues on the soil surface.
LITTLE ICE AGE--cold period that lasted from about A.D. 1550 to about A.D. 1850 in Europe, North America, and Asia. This period was marked by rapid expansion of mountain glaciers, especially in the Alps, Norway, Ireland, and Alaska. There were three maxima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals.
LITTORAL ZONE--of the seashore, between the high and low tide marks. Pertaining to the shallower life zone near the shore, out to the usual limit of influence of wave action, tides and daylight.
LIVE STORAGE RESERVES--see ground-water storage reserves.
LOCAL FLOW SYSTEM--see ground-water flow system.
LOESS--Nonstratified sediment composed of silt-sized particles deposited by the wind. These windblown dust deposits were derived from glacial materials. Loess is found throughout Kansas but is especially common in the northeastern and northwestern parts of the state.
LONGWAVE RADIATION--radiation emitted in the spectral wavelength greater than 4 micrometers corresponding to the radiation emitted from the earth and atmosphere. It is sometimes referred to as terrestrial radiation or infrared radiation, although somewhat imprecisely.
LOSING STREAM--A stream that contributies water to the zone of saturation, recharging the ground water.
LOTIC SYSTEM--flowing body of freshwater, such as a river or stream. Compare lentic system.
LUMPED-PARAMETER MODELS--models that ignore spatial variations in parameters throughout an entire system.
LUSTER--The appearance of a mineral in reflected
light. Terms such as metallic or greasy refer to general appearance; terms
such as bright or dull refer to intensity.
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MAGMA--Hot, liquid rock. Igneous rocks are formed when magma cools.
MAGNESIUM--The cationic form of the element magnesium (Mg) that has a double positive charge as dissolved in water; along with calcium, a major dissolved constituent constituting hardness in water.
MAJOR DISSOLVED CONSTITUENTS--The substances in largest concentration that are dissolved in typical Kansas waters are calcium, magnesium, sodium, bicarbonate, chloride, sulfate, and silica, although nitrate can sometimes be a major constituent.
MARINE--Relating to the sea. Native to or formed by the sea.
MASS BALANCE--application of the principle of the conservation of matter. For example, the mass of a glacier is not destroyed or created; the mass of a glacier and all its constitutive components remains the same despite alterations in their physical states. The mass balance of a glacier is calculated with the input/output relationships of ice, firn, and snow, usually measured in water equivalent. Output includes all ablative processes of surface melting, basal melting, evaporation, wind deflation, calving, and internal melting. Input includes direct precipitation, avalanching, and the growth of superimposed ice.
MASS FLUX--see flux.
MASS CURVE or RIPPLE DIAGRAM--cumulative plot of reservoir inflow on the ordinate against time on the abscissa which permits simple graphical evaluation of reservoir yield. Widely used in surface water engineering design.
MATHEMATICAL MODEL--mathematical equations expressing the physical system and including simplifying assumptions. The representation of a physical system by mathematical expressions from which the behavior of the system can be predicted.
MATRIC POTENTIAL--see soil-water potential.
MAXIMUM CONTAMINANT LEVEL (MCL)--maximum level of a contaminant allowed in water by Federal law. Based on health effects and currently available treatment methods.
MEAN SEA LEVEL--average height of the sea surface, based upon hourly observation of the tide height onthe open coast or in adjacent waters that have free access to the sea. In the United States, it is defined as the average height of the sea surface for all stages of the tide over a 19-year period. Mean sea level, commonly abbreviated as MSL and referred to simly as sea level, serves as the reference surface for all altitudes in upper atmospheric studies.
MEASURED STRATIGRAPHIC SECTION--Recorded description of a rock outcrop, usually depicted with a graphic column. Descriptions may include thickness, composition, fossil content, geologic structures, and other features of the rock units.
MESA--A flat-topped hill with steep sides.
MESIC ENVIRONMENT--habitat with a moderate amount of water.
MESOZOIC ERA--One of the four large divisions of geologic time, it includes three geologic period, from about 248 to 65 million years ago.
METAMORPHIC ROCK--Rock that has changed from one form to another by heat or pressure.
METEOR--Small bodies of matter, such as rocks, traveling in space. They are heated and often disintegrate after entering the earth's atmosphere.
METEORITE--Stony or metallic material of a meteor that has survived passage through the Earth's atmosphere and reached the earth's surface.
METEOROLOGICAL DROUGHT--see drought.
METRIC TON--1,000 kilograms (kg). One metric ton = 1.1 U.S. (or short) ton.
MG/L--Milligrams of a substance dissolved in one liter of water. The value is essentially the same as a part per million in freshwater because one liter of distilled water weighs one million milligrams (one kilogram).
MICROMHOS PER CENTIMETER (µmho/cm)--see specific conductance.
MILANKOVITCH THEORY--astronomical theory formulated by the Yugoslav mathematician Milutin Milankovitch that associates climate change with fluctuations in the seasonal and geographic distribution of insolation resulting from three changes in the geometry of the earth's orbit. One is that the path of the earth around the sun forms an ellipse, the shape of which changes over a period of about 100,000 years. The second is that the rotational axis of the earth is tilted with respect to the plane of its orbit; the tilt is now 23.5?, but it has varied several degrees over a period of 41,000 years. The third phenomenon is a wobble in the axis of rotation, an event that seems to recur every 21,000 years. The Milanko-vitch theory has gained acceptance primarily because young marine sediments exhibit cycles of 23,000, 42,000, and 100,000 years-very close to the cycles Milankovitch calculated.
MILLIGRAMS PER LITER (mg/L)--Milligrams per liter of water. This measure is equivalent to parts per million (ppm).
MINERAL INTRUSION--movement of water from an aquifer containing mineralized or salty water into a freshwater stream, lake, or aquifer.
MINIMUM DESIRABLE STREAMFLOWS (MDS)--under Kansas water law, streamflows that maintain or preserve instream uses of water quality, fish, wildlife, aquatic life, recreation, and aesthetics from unacceptable stream depletions by future consumptive appropriations. Minimum desirable streamflows will not be preferred to vested and senior appropriation rights filed prior to their enactment nor will they be maintained through all drought conditions.
MINING--as it pertains to water, the process, deliberate or inadvertent, of extracting ground water from a source at a rate so that the ground-water level declines persistently, threatening actual exhaustion of the supply.
MINK STUDY--study of the likely effects of increasing temperatures on the agricultural economy of the Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas region.
MISFIT RIVER--river that appears to be too small for its present valley. This may be because its head waters have been captured and so are reduced; a change of climate has occurred and the amount of water has decreased; or the valley has been enlarged by glaciation. Sometimes known as an underfit river.
MIOCENE EPOCH--The interval of geologic time between approximately 23.8 and 5.3 million years ago.
MISSISSIPPIAN PERIOD--The interval of geologic time from 354 million to 323 million years ago. Rocks deposited during the Mississippian crop out in Kansas only in the southeasternmost corner of the state.
MODEL--Assembly of concepts in the form of mathematical equations that portray understanding of a natural phenomenon.
MODELING--Investigative technique that uses a mathematical or physical representation of a system or theory that accounts for all or some of its known properties. Models are often used to test the effects of changes of system components on the overall performance of the system.
MONITORING WELL--Non-pumping well used primarily for drawing water-quality samples; also for measuring ground-water levels.
MOSASAUR--An extinct marine reptile that lived
in the Cretaceous seas. Some mosasaur species were 45 to 50 feet long.
Mosasaurs were the dominant carnivores in many marine environments. See
of Kansas Paleontology for more information on the animals that lived
in the Cretaceous seas of Kansas.
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NATURAL CAPITAL--characterization of environmental resources as assets in the economy that have the potential to contribute to economic productivity and welfare; for example, the value of a natural resource as an economic asset depends on the present value of its income, or welfare, potential. Natural capital is distinguished from other forms of capital, namely human or social capital (people, their capacity levels, institutions, cultural cohesion, education, information, knowledge), and human-made capital (houses, roads, factories, ships).
NATURAL RECHARGE--Naturally occurring water added to an aquifer. Natural recharge generally comes from snowmelt and precipitation or storm runoff.
NET PRIMARY PRODUCTION (or productivity)--part of the gross primary production that remains stored in the producer organism (primarily green plants) after deducting the amount used during the process of respiration. Abbreviated NPP.
NONCONSUMPTIVE USE--use that leaves the water available for other uses. Examples are hydroelectric power generation and recreational uses.
NONPOINT SOURCE--Source of water pollution that originates from a broad area, such as agricultural chemicals, applied to fields, or acid rain.
NORMAL--average value of a meteorological variable (such as precipitation or temperature) over a fixed period of years, usually recognized as standard. In the United States, 30-year normals are frequently used.
NPDES PERMIT--permit issued under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System for companies discharging pollutants directly into the waters of the United States.
NUMERICAL METHODS--set of procedures used to solve the equations of a mathematical model in which the applicable partial differential equations are replaced by a set of algebraic equations written in terms of discrete values of state variables at discrete points in space and time. There are many numerical methods. Those in common use in ground-water models are the finite-difference method, the finite-element method, the boundary-element method, and the analytical-element method.
NUMERICAL MODEL--model that uses numerical
methods to solve the governing equations of the applicable problem.
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OBSERVATION WELL--non-pumping well used primarily for observing the elevation of the water table or the piezometric pressure; also to obtain water-quality samples.
OLIGOCENE EPOCH--The interval of geologic time between approximately 33.7 and 23.8 million years ago.
OOLITES--Small spherical concretions, commonly formed by calcite that was deposited around a sand grain, shell fragment, or some other foreign particle in shallow, wave-agitated water.
OPEN SYSTEM--system in which energy and matter are exchanged between the system and its environment, for example, a living organism. Compare closed system, isolated system.
ORDOVICIAN PERIOD--The interval of geologic time between about 495 and 443 million years ago.
ORGANIC--Made from or derived from living matter. Coal is made from plants, which are organic.
OSMOTIC POTENTIAL--see soil-water potential.
OUTCROP--That part of a rock unit that is exposed at the earth's surface.
OUTPUT--modeling, all information that is produced by the computer code.
OVERDRAFT--(1) pumping of ground water for consumptive use in excess of safe yield; (2) the condition of a ground- water basin where the amount of water withdrawn exceeds the amount of water captured over the basin over a period of time. The use of water in excess of the perennial yield.
OZONE--Molecule made up of three atoms of oxygen
(O3). In the stratosphere, it occurs naturally and it provides a protective
layer shielding the Earth from ultraviolet radiation and subsequent harmful
health effects on humans and the environment. In the troposphere, it is
a chemical oxidant and major component of photochemical smog.
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PALEOCENE EPOCH--The interval of geologic time between approximately 65 and 54.8 million years ago.
PALEONTOLOGY--The study of ancient life based on the examination of plant and animal fossils.
PALEOZOIC ERA--One of the four large divisions of geologic time, it includes seven geologic period, from about 545 to 248 million years ago.
PALYNOLOGY--Science of reconstructing the past flora and past climate from pollen data obtained from lake and bog sediments. The fossil pollen record is a function of the regional flora and vegetation at a given time and location.
PARTS PER MILLION (ppm)--See milligrams per liter.
PELECYPOD--Any aquatic mollusk belonging to the class Pelecypoda (phylum Mollusca), which includes clams, mussels, scallops, and oysters. Pelecypods have two symmetrical calcareous shells, called right and left valves, that are joined by a hinge. Pelecypods are also known as bivalves because of this bilateral symmetry. Most pelecypods are bottom-dwelling and live in shallow marine waters.
PENNSYLVANIAN PERIOD--The interval of geologic time from approximately 323 million to 290 million years ago. The period is named after the state of Pennsylvania in which rocks of this age are widespread and yield much coal. In Kansas, good exposures of Pennsylvanian rocks showing alternations of shale and limestone exist in many places in eastern Kansas.
PERCHED WATER TABLE--Water table of a relatively small ground-water body lying above the general ground- water body.
PERCHING HORIZON--A relatively impermeable (i.e., incapable of transmitting fluids) lens or layer of clay or bedrock in otherwise permeable sediments that slows or prevents the downward movement of water.
PERCOLATION--laminar-gravity flow through unsaturated and saturated earth material.
PERENNIAL FLOW--year-round flow.
PERENNIAL YIELD--maximum quantity of water that can be withdrawn annually from a ground water supply under a given set of conditions without causing an undesirable result.
PERFECT (verb; also see certify)--under Kansas water law, the actions of a water user to bring an appropriation right into final form by the completion of diversion works and application of water to the proposed use in accordance with the approved water-right application.
PERIHELION--Point at which an object, travelling in an elliptical orbit around the sun, is at its closest to the sun.
PERIOD--A unit of geologic time. Several periods make up an era.
PERMANENT WILTING PERCENTAGE OR POINT--water content of soil when indicator plants growing in that soil wilt and fail to recover when placed in a humid chamber.
PERMEABLE--Permeability is a measure of the ease with which a fluid will move through a porous material (e.g., sand and gravel or rock). A geologic unit is permeable if ground water moves easily throught it.
PERMEABILITY--(1) Ability of a material (generally an earth material) to transmit fluids (water) through its pores when subjected to pressure or a difference in head. Expressed in units of volume of fluid (water) per unit time per cross section area of material for a given hydraulic head; (2) description of the ease with which a fluid may move through a porous medium; abbreviation of intrinsic permeability. It is a property of the porous medium only, in contrast to hydraulic conductivity, which is a property of both the porous medium and the fluid content of the medium.
PERMIAN PERIOD--The interval of geologic time from approximately 290 to 248.2 million years ago. In Kansas, rocks from the early part of the Permian include many of the limestones and shales that form the Flint Hills; later Permian deposits include the red beds of south-central Kansas.
PETROGLYPH--An archeological term for carvings or lines cut into rock. Petroglyphs have been carved into soft sandstones in central Kansas.
pH--measure of the relative acidity or alkalinity of water. Defined as the negative log (base 10) of the hydrogen ion concentration. Water with a pH of 7 is neutral; lower pH levels indicate an increasing acidity, while pH levels above 7 indicate increasingly basic solutions.
PHENOLOGY--study of periodic biological phenomena with relation to climate, particularly seasonal changes, such as the time that certain plants and trees come into leaf and flower, and the date of the first and last appearance of animals and birds in a particular habitat. These phenomena can be used to interpret local seasons and the climatic zones.
PHOTOCHEMICAL SMOG--air pollution caused by chemicla reactions among various substances and pollutants in the atmosphere.
PHOTOSYNTHESIS--Manufacture by plants of carbohydrates and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water in the presence of chlorophyll with sunlight as the energy source. Oxygen and water vapor are released in the process. Photosynthesis is dependent on favorable temperature and moisture conditions as well as on the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Increased levels of carbon dioxide can increase net photosynthesis in many plants.
PHREATIC--Indicating the water-saturated zone beolow the water table. The phreatic zone is the area of the subsurface that is saturated with water.
PHREATIC ZONE--same as zone of (ground-water) saturation. Was originally used to designate water in the upper part of the zone of saturation.
PHREATOPHYTE--plant whose roots generally extend downwards to the water table and customarily feed on the capillary fringe. Phreatophytes are common in riparian habitats. Term literally means "well" plant or water-loving plant. Common examles in Kansas are salt cedar, cottonwoods, and willows.
PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGION (or PROVINCE)--A region of which all parts are similar in geologic structure and climate and which has consequently had a unified geomorphic history; a region whose patterns of relief features or landforms differs significantly from that of adjacent regions. (from Glossary of Geology, 4th Edition).
PHYSIOGRAPHY--Description of the natural physical features (landforms) of the earth.
PICOCURIES (pCi)--see curie.
PIEZOMETER--small-diameter well open at a point or short length in the aquifer to allow measurement of hydraulic head at that point or short length.
PIEZOMETRIC PRESSURE--pressure corresponding to the height to which water would rise in an observation well penetrating an aquifer.
PIEZOMETRIC SURFACE--surface defined by a pressure head and position (elevation above a standard datum, such as sea level). For an unconfined aquifer, it is equal to the elevation of the water table. For a confined aquifer, it is equal to the elevation to which water would rise in a well penetrating and open to the aquifer. This term is now replaced by potentiometric surface.
PLANNING HORIZON--range of time during which the system under study has to be operated. An aquifer with negligible annual recharge containing a million acre-feet (1.2335 km3) of recoverable ground-water stocks has a zero sustainable yield if the planning horizon is infinite. For a 100-year-time (planning) horizon, the same aquifer has a 10,000 acre-foot sustainable yield; for a 10-year horizon, a 100,000 acre-foot sustainable yield.
PLAYA--Flat-floored bottom of an undrained desert basin, becoming at times a shallow muddy lake after heavy rainfall; or the flooding of a river which on evaporation may leave a deposit of salt or gypsum. A salt pan. The Great Basin in Nevada and Utah in the western United States has many playas.
PLESIOSAUR--A large, fish-eating, marine reptile that became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
PLEISTOCENE--earlier of the two epochs of the Quaternary Period starting 2 to 3 million years before the present and ending about 10,000 years ago. It was a time of glacial activity.
PLEISTOCENE EPOCH--The interval of geologic time between approximately 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago.
PLIOCENE EPOCH--The interval of geologic time between approximately 5.3 and 1.6 million years ago.
PLUVIAL--pertaining to precipitation.
POINT OF DIVERSION--point at which water is diverted or withdrawn from a source of water supply.
POINT SOURCE--Source of pollution that originates from a single point, such as an outflow pipe from a factory.
POPCORN--A term given to gnarled, bulbous, or pointed cave formations that form either from slow seeping of mineralized water from porous bedrock or as coatings on submerged walls and floors. Also known as cave coral.
POROSITY--Fraction of bulk volume of a material consisting of pore space. Porosity determines the capacity of a rock formation to absorb and store ground water.
POROUS--Geologically, this term describes rock that permits movement of fluids through small, often microscopic openings, much as water moving through a sponge. Porous rocks may contain gas, oil, or water.
POSITIVE FEEDBACK--interaction that amplifies the response of the system in which it is incorporated.
POTENTIAL EVAPOTRANSPIRATION (PET)--maximum amount of soil evaporation and transpiration from a well-irrigated crop for a given set of environmental conditions.
POTENTIAL GRADIENT--see soil-water potential.
POTENTIOMETRIC SURFACE--Imaginary surface representing the static head of ground water and defined by the level to which water will rise in a well. The water table is a particular potentiometric surface.
PRAIRIE--Gentle undulating, almost flat, generally treeless, grassy plains of North America, covering the southern regions of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada and central United States from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains about as far east as Lake Michigan. The light summer rains with local droughts and high summer temperatures encourage a rich growth of grass, but few trees. They form the North American equivalent of the Pampas of South America, the Steppes of Eurasia, and the Veldt of South Africa.
PRECAMBRIAN--The interval of geologic time before the Cambrian Period, from approximately 4.6 billion to 545 million years ago.
PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE--caution, "margins of error," or "safeguards" should be invoked for those human interventions in the natural environment where (i) our understanding of the likely consequences are limited, and (ii) there are threats of serious or irreversible damage to natural systems and processes.
PRECIPITATION--Water in some form that falls from the atmosphere. It can be inthe form of liquid (rain or drizzle) or solid (snow, hail, sleet).
PRESSURE HEAD--see hydraulic head.
PRIMARY PRODUCTIVITY--see gross primary productivity and net primary productivity.
PRIOR APPROPRIATION--doctrine for prioritizing water rights based upon dates of appropriation ("first in time, first in right"). Common for allocating water rights in the western United States.
PUBLIC SUPPLY--Water used for drinking and
other purposes supplied to many people by a system operated by a city,
housing unit, industry, etc.
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QUARTZ--An important rock-forming mineral, crystalline silica (SiO2) occurs either in transparent hexagonal crystals or in crystalline or cryptocrystalline masses. Quartz is the commonest mineral next to feldspar and forms the majority of most sands. It is widely distributed in igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. It has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale.
QUATERNARY PERIOD--The interval of geologic
time between approximately 1.8 million years ago and the present. It is
divided into the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs.
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RADIATIVELY ACTIVE GASES--gases that absorb incoming solar radiation or outgoing infrared radiation thus affecting the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere. Most frequently cited as being radiatively active gases are water vapor, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and ozone.
RADIOACTIVITY--Release of energy and energetic particles by changes occurring within atomic or nuclear structures. Radioactive energy is released in various ways such as alpha radiation, beta radiation, and gamma radiation. Radioactivity data are expressed in terms of concentration of specific nuclides. General measurements of total or gross alpha or beta and gamma activity also are often reported. The radioactivity of water is usually expressed in terms of the rate of radioactive disintegration (curies) per liter of water.
RADIOSONDE--balloon-borne instrument for the simultaneous measurement and transmission of meteorological data up to a height of approximately 30,000 meters (100,000 feet). The height of each pressure level of the observation is computed from data received via radio signals.
RATING CURVE--plot of discharge as a function of gage height. Data for a rating curve are obtained by current meter measurements of discharge.
RCRA--Resource Conservation and Recover Act-Federal legislation requiring that hazardous waste be tracked from "cradle" (generation) to "grave" (disposal).
RECHARGE--The replenishment of ground water in an aquifer. It can be either natural, through the movement of precipitation into an aquifer, or artificial-the pumping of water into an aquifer.
RECHARGE AREA--A geographic area where water enters (recharges) an aquifer. Recharge areas usually coincide with topographically elevated regions where aquifer units crop out at the surface. In these areas infiltrated precipitation is the primary source of recharge. The recharge area may also coincide with the area of hydraulic connection where one aquifer receives flow from another adjacent aquifer.
RED BED--Red sedimentary units of Permian age in south-central Kansas. Consists of shale and sandstone.
REGIONAL FLOW SYSTEM--see ground-water flow system.
REGULATED FLOW--surface flow downstream from a dam or other flow control structure.
RESERVOIR CAPACITY--amount of water a surface reservoir is capable of storing.
RESERVOIR STORAGE--water stored in a surface reservoir.
RESIDENCE TIME--size of any specific reservoir or pool of mass (e.g., carbon) divided by the total flux of mass into or out of that pool.
RESURGENCE--A speleologic term for spring of the exit of ground water to the surface. Often refers to the downstream cave opening. An opening where flowing surface water enters the subsurface is known as an insurgence.
RETURN FLOW--part of water that is not consumed and returns to its source or another body of water.
RETURN PERIOD--see recurrence interval.
RIMSTONE--A speleothem that results from the movement of water over a ridge where minerals are deposited on the ridge. With time the ridge gradually builds upward in an upstream direction forming a rimstone dam. Pools are formed behind these dams, and cave pearls and cave popcorn may form in these pools.
RIPARIAN--Of, or pertaining to, rivers and their banks.
RIPARIAN HABITAT--Natural home of plants and animals occurring in a thin strip of land bordering a stream or river. Dominant vegetation often consists of phreatophytes.
RIPARIAN RIGHTS--surface-water rights assigned on the basis of land ownership along a stream reach common in the western United States.
RIVER BASIN--see drainage basin.
RISK ASSESSMENT--evaluation of the potential for exposure to contaminants and the associated hazard.
RIVERINE SYSTEM--entire river network, including tributaries, side channels sloughs, intermittent streams, etc.
ROAD CUT--A location where rock or dirt, usually on a hill, is cut away to make room for a road.
ROOT ZONE--Subsurface zone extending from the land surface to the maximum depth penetrated by roots.
RUNOFF--Drainage or flood discharge that leaves
an area as surface flow or as pipeline flow, having reached a channel or
pipeline by either surface or subsurface routes. Generally, surface water
entering river, lakes, or reservoirs.
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SAFE YIELD--(1) Rate of surface-water diversion or ground- water extraction from a basin for consumptive use over an indefinite period of time that can be maintained without producing negative effects; (2) the annual extraction from a ground-water unit which will not, or does not, i. exceed the average annual recharge; ii. so lower the water table that permissible cost of pumping is exceeded; iii. so lower the water table as to permit intrusion of water of undesirable quality; or iv. so lower the water table as to infringe upon existing water rights; (3) the attainment and maintenance of a long-term balance between the amount of ground water withdrawn annually and the annual amount of recharge; (4) the maximum quantity of water that can be guaranteed from a reservoir during a critical dry period. Synonymous to firm yield.
SALINE WATER--Water containing more than 10,000 parts per million (ppm) of dissolved solids of any type. Brackish water contains between 1,000 and 10,000 ppm of dissolved solids.
SALINITY--The total quantity of dissolved salts in water, usually measured by weight in milligrams per liter (mg/L) or parts per million (ppm). The upper limit for freshwater is 1,000 mg/L; natural seawater has a salinity of approximately 35,000 mg/L.
SALTWATER INTRUSION--movement of saltwater into freshwater aquifers.
SAND--A rock fragment or mineral particle smaller than a granule and larger than a coarse silt grain. Its diameter ranges from 1/16 to 2 mm.
SANDSTONE--Rock formed by the compaction and/or cementing of sand. Cement (matrix) material can be calcite, hematite (FeO2), or other materials.
SATURATED THICKNESS--The vertical thickness of an aquifer that is full of water. The upper surface is the water table. The height of the hydrogeologically defined aquifer unit in which the pore spaces are filled (saturated) with water. For the High Plains aquifer and similar unconfined, unconsolidated aquifers, the saturated thickness is equal to the difference in elevation between the bedrock surface and the water table. The predevelopment saturated thickness is based on the best available estimate of the elevation of the water table prior to human alteration by groundwater pumping.
SATURATED ZONE--That portion of soil or an aquifer in which all of the pore space is filled with water.
SCALLOP--A speleothem formed from solution by water movement on bedrock surfaces. Abrasion erosion on rock surfaces forms flat surfaces on rock, but solutional erosion often produces a dimpled surface like that of a golf ball. The steeper side of the dimple is the upstream side.
SECONDARY STANDARD--The maximum concentration recommended for a substance in water for a particular use. An example of secondary standard for drinking water is 250 mg/L chloride that is based mainly on taste.
SEDIMENT--Rock or other material that has been worn or broken into small pieces. Sediment is often carried from its original location by wind or water and deposited in other areas.
SEDIMENTARY ROCK--Rocks formed from sediment, broken rocks, or organic matter. Many sedimentary rocks are formed when wind or water deposits sediment into the layers, which are pressed together by more layers of sediment, forming underground beds of rocks.
SEEP--A discharge of water that "oozes out of the soil or rock over a certain area without distinct trickles or rivulets" (from H. Bouwer, 1978, Groundwater Hydrology: New York, McCraw-Hill, 480 p.).
SELF-ORGANIZATION--capacity of ecosystems to develop and evolve in a dynamic fashion within the constraints set by energy flow and biogeochemical cycling; ecosystems are formed in response to these fluxes, are maintained and developed by them, and will respond continuously to them through numerous feedbacks.
SEMIARID--Said of a type of climate in which there is slightly more precipitation (10-20 inches [254-508 mm]) than in an arid climate, and in which sparse grasses are the characteristic vegetation.
SENIOR APPROPRIATOR--owner of a surface-water right whose right was acquired prior to other rights holders on the same stream.
SENSITIVITY--in model applicaiton, the degree to which the model result is affected by changes in a selected model input representing hydrogeologic framework, hydraulic properties, or boundary conditions.
SHALE--Rock that is often impervious to water (will not allow water to move through it) but rather soft, brittle, and easily eroded. Shale is the result of compaction of silt or mud. Much of the Permian and Pennsylvanian strata in Kansas consists of various shales, often brightly colored.
SHORTWAVE RADIATION--radiation received from the sun and emitted in the spectral wavelengths less than 4 micrometers. It is also called solar radiation.
SILT--A rock fragment or mineral particle with a diameter of 1/16 mm to 1/256 mm, smaller than a very fine sand grain and larger than coarse clay.
SILURIAN PERIOD--The interval of geologic time between about 443 and 417 million years ago.
SILVICULTURE--management of forest land for timber.
SIMULATION--in ground-water-flow modeling, one comlete execution of a ground-water-modeling computer program, including input and output.
SINK (SINKHOLE)--A depression in the surface of the earth caused by solution and/or collapse of rock. A sink is an entry point for water into cave and spring systems. All sinks will carry water into the subsurface.
SODIUM--The cationic form of the element sodium (Na) that has a single positive charge as dissolved in water.
SODIUM-CHLORIDE TYPE--Water in which the constituents with the larges dissolved concentrations are sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl). Sodium-chloride type water is usually derived from dissolution of rock salt (the mineral halite with the composition NaCl).
SODIUM-SULFATE TYPE--Water in which the constituents with the largest dissolved concentrations are sodium (Na) and sulfate (SO4). Calcium is also usually present in substantial concentrations in this type of water, but the calcium is limited from being at higher levels due to the solubility limits of minerals such as calcite (CaCO3) and gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O).
SOIL HORIZON--layer of soil or soil material approximately parallel to the land surface and differing from adjacent genetically related layers in physical, chemical, and biological properties or characteristics such as color, structure, texture, consistency, kinds and number of organisms present, degree of acidity or alkalinity, etc.
SOIL MOISTURE--water in the root zone.
SOIL-WATER POTENTIAL--energy with which water is held in a soil at any water content. It is the potential energy per unit quantity (unit mass, unit weight, or unit volume) of water in a system, compared to that of pure (no solutes), free water (no external forces other than gravity) at the same location (which represents the reference state of zero value). Potential energy is the energy of the water that is potentially available to be released when the water moves from one position to another. Because water is held in the soil by forces of adsorption, cohesion, and solution, soil water is not usually capable of doing as much work as pure free water; hence, the soil-water potential is normally negative. The soil-water potential can be considered as the sum of component potentials such as matric or capillary potential (resulting from the capillary and adsorptive forces due to the soil matrix), gravitational potential (resulting from relative elevation differences), osmotic potential (resulting from the presence of solutes; it comes into play whenever a membrane or diffusion barrier is present that transmits water more readily than salts or solutes), and others. A soil-water potential gradient (which is the change of energy potential with distance) is required to cause fluid to flow. For some applications, certain combinations of component potentials are used so often that for ease of referring to them it is desirable to give the combination a name. For liquid water flow in soils, it is convenient to combine component potentials that serve as driving forces-pressure, matric, and gravitational potentials, and call the combination by the name of hydraulic potential. If the unit quantity is measured as weight, then the units of hydraulic potential are energy per unit weight, which are exactly equal to the units of hydraulic head.
SOLAR CONSTANT--rate at which solar energy is received just outside the earth's atmosphere on a surface that is normal to the incident radiation and at the mean distance of the earth from the sun. The current value is 0.140 watt/cm2.
SOLAR IRRADIANCE--see insolation.
SOLAR NEBULA THEORY--The current theory for the origin of the solar system, which involves a huge cloud of gases and dispersed solids condensing under its own gravitational attraction, then contracting, rotating, and flattening into a disk, with the sun forming in the center and planets forming in localized eddies around the sun.
SOLAR RADIATION--see shortwave radiation.
SOLUM (plural: sola)--upper and most weathered part of the soil profile; the A and B soil horizons.
SOLUTE-TRANSPORT MODEL--application of a model to represent the movement of constituents dissolved in ground water.
SOLUTION--Geologically, the action of the dissolving of rock by water or the term to describe the water that dissolves the rock. Limestone dissolves in acidic solutions; gypsum can be dissolved in pure water. On dissolving the rock, the water becomes a calcite solution (the calcite may later be redeposited).
SPECIFIC CONDUCTANCE--measure of the ability of a water to conduct an electrical current, expressed in micromhos per centimeter at 25°C. Specific conductance is related to the type and concentration of ions in solution and can be used for approximating the dissolved-solids content of the water. Commonly, the concentration of dissolved solids (in milligrams per liter) is about 65% of the specific conductance (in micromhos per centimeter). This relation is not constant from supply to supply, and it may even vary in the same source with changes in the composition of the water.
SPECIFIC DISCHARGE--for ground water, the rate of discharge of ground water per unit area measured at right angles to the direction of flow.
SPECIFIC RETENTION--ratio of the volume of water that a given body of rock or soil will hold against the pull of gravity to the volume of the body itself. It is usually expressed as a percentage. Compare with field capacity.
SPECIFIC STORAGE--volume of water released from or taken into storage per unit volume of the porous medium per unit change in head. It is the three-dimensional equivalent of storage coefficient or storativity, and is equal to storativity divided by aquifer saturated thickness.
SPECIFIC YIELD--The quantity of water given up by a unit volume of a substance when drained by gravity.
SPELEOGEN--A bedrock form that results from differential solution of cave passages. Speleogens are forms that are left behind after solution rather than forms created by deposition (speleothems).
SPELEOGENESIS--The study of cave formation. Each cave has a unique origin.
SPELEOLOGY--The science of the cave environment. It embraces several brances of biology and geology as well as chemistry, meteorology, and soil science.
SPELEOTHEM--Asecondary mineral deposit formed within a cave, such as stalactites and stalagmites.
SPHALERITE--Zinc sulfide (ZnS), the principal zinc ore mined Tri-state deposits in southeastern Kansas, usually found in breccia in ancient refilled sinks and caves.
SPRING--A place where ground water flows naturally from the earth into a body of surface water or onto the land surface, at a rate sufficient to form a current.
STAGE--elevation of stream surface above a defined datum, usually mean sea level.
STALACTITE--A normally cylindrical deposit of minerals suspended from the ceiling of a cave. In Kansas stalactites are generally found in limestone caves.
STALAGMITE--A column of mineral deposits that grow upward from the floor, often from water dripping down from a stalactite above.
STEADY-STATE FLOW--characteristic of a flow system where the magnitude and direction of specific discharge are constant in time at any point.
STOCHASTIC--in subsurface fluid flow, consideration of subsurface media and flow parameters as random variables.
STOCHASTIC MODEL--in subsurface fluid flow, a model representing ground-water parameters as random variables.
STOCHASTIC PROCESS--process in which the dependent variable is random (so that prediction of its value depends on a set of underlying probabilities) and the outcome at any instant is not known with certainty.
STOCK USE--Water used for drinking by livestock.
STORATIVITY or STORAGE COEFFICIENT--volume of water released per unit area of aquifer and per unit drop in head. Storage coefficient is a function of the compressive qualities of water and matrix structures of the porous material. A confined aquifer's ability to store water is measured by its storage coefficient. Storativity is a more general term encompassing both or either storage coefficient and/or specific yield.
STORM CURVE NUMBER--see curve number.
STRATIGRAPHY--The study of sedimentary rock layers. Stratigraphy includes deposition, age, distribution, and other characteristics.
STRATOSPHERE--region of the upper atmosphere extending from the tropopause (8 to 15 km altitude) to about 50 km.
STRAWTITE--Also known as a soda straw, this term describes stalactites in their infant stage. When calcite-laden dripwater hangs on the ceiling and falls, movement releases carbon dioxide and a ring of calcite is deposited at the point from which it fell. As the formation grows, it resembles a drinking straw and can be several inches long. Eventually, most soda straws will become clogged by calcite growths within them. Then the water is forced to flow down the outside of the stawtites, and minerals deposited on the outer surface. Ultimately, the stalactite becomes the carrot-shaped form usually seen in caves.
STREAK--The finely powdered material left behind when a mineral is rubbed on a piece of unglazed porcelain. This streak may have a different color from that of the mineral itself and is an excellent check in identifying many minerals.
STREAM HYDROGRAPH--see hydrograph.
STREAM REACH--specific portion of the length of a stream.
STREAMFLOW--discharge that occurs in a natural channel. A more general term than runoff, streamflow may be applied to discharge whether or not it is affected by diversion or regulation.
STRONG SUSTAINABILITY--view that, given the limits to substitution between some natural capital and other economic assets (such as reproducible or human-made capital), as well as the problems of irreversibility, uncertainty of threshold effects and the potential scale of social costs associated with loss of certain environmental assets, sustainable development cannot be assured without imposing some conditions on the depletion of natural capital; for example, if some minimum level of biodiversity is essential for ecosystem functioning and resilience, preserving the economic opportunities available to future generations requires the prevention of biodiversity loss that threatens this minimum threshold level.
SUBLIMATION--Transition of water directly from the solid state to the gaseous state, without passing through the liquid state; or vice versa.
SUBSTRATE--(i) that which is laid or spread under; an underlying layer, such as the subsoil; (ii) the substance, base, or nutrient on which an organism grows; (iii) compounds or substances that are acted upon by enzymes or catalysts and changed to other compounds in the chemical reaction.
SUBSURFACE--Underground. Below the earth's surface.
SUBSURFACE WATER--all water below the land surface, including soil moisture, capillary fringe water in the vadose zone, and ground water.
SULFATE--The anionic constituent SO4 that has two negative charges as dissolved in water.
SUMMER FALLOW--special case of fallowing in which all vegetative growth is prevented by shallow tillage in conjunction with or without herbicides during the summer months, in place of growing a crop, in order to store water for use by the next crop.
SURFACE WATER--Water found at the earth's surface, usually in streams or lakes.
SURFACE-WATER DIVERSION--see diversion.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT--economic and social development that increases the welfare of current generations without affecting adversely the welfare of future generations; for example future generations have economic opportunities that are at least as large as earlier generations. See strong sustainability and weak sustainability. Sustainable development by its very nature is a multidimensional concept. This concept involves not only the management and conservation of the natural resource-base, but also the social, institutional, technological, and cultural changes involved. Though it is extremely difficult to conceptualize ideally what sustainable development means, definition of sustainable development has to be sufficiently broad to be able to capture the various dimensions involved. See also environmental sustainability.
SUSTAINABLE YIELD--volume of ground water that can be extracted annually from a ground water basin without causing adverse effects.
and SYSTEMS--is the study of systems, groups of interacting, interdependent
parts linked together by comlex exchanges of energy, matter, and information.
There is a key distinction between "classical" science and system science.
Classical (or reductionist) science is based on the resolution of phenomena
into isolatable causal trains and the search for basic, "atomic" units
or parts of the system. Classical science depends on weak or nonexistent
interaction between parts and essentially linear relations among the parts,
so that the parts can be added together to give the behavior of the whole.
These conditions are not met in the entities called systems. A "system"
is characterized by strong (usually nonlinear) interactions between the
parts, feedbacks (making resolution into isolatable causal trains difficult
or impossible), and the inability to simly "add-up" small-scale behavior
to arrive at large-scale results. Ecological and economic systems
obviously exhibit these characteristics of systems, and are not well understood
using the methods of classical, reductionist science. One might define
"systems analysis" as the scientific method applied both across and within
disciplines, scales, resolutions, and system types.
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TALUS--Fallen or broken rock that is found at the foot of a steep slope. The spaces between talus boulders may be interconnected and large enough to be considered caves. The longest talus cave in Kansas is 81 feet long (Talus Cave in Montgomery County).
TECTONICS--The study of the movement of the earth's outer crust. Tectonics includes the study of earthquakes and other faulting, mountain uplifting, and plate tectonics.
TERRACES--In geologic terms, these are flat broad benches of land that lie above the immediate floodplain of a stream. Terraces represent a prior floodplain level of the stream.
TERRESTRIAL RADIATION--see longwave radiation.
TERTIARY PERIOD--The interval of geologic time between about 65 and 1.8 million years ago. It includes the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs.
TEXTURE (soil)--relative proportions of sand, silt, and clay particles in a mass of soil.
THALWEG--line of maximum depth in a stream. The thalweg is the part that has the maximum velocity and causes cutbanks and channel migration.
THERMAL POLLUTION--Reduction in water quality caused by increasing its temperature, often due to the disposal of waste heat from industrial or power generation processes. Thermally polluted water often undergoes biological changes that render it less valuable for drinking, recreation, habitat, or industrial use.
THERMOCLINE--fairly thin zone in a lake that separates an upper warmer zone (epilimnion) from a lower colder zone (hypolimnion).
THERMOHALINE--refers to the combined effects of temperature and salinity that contribute to density variations in the oceans.
TOPOGRAPHIC MAP--A map that shows natural human-made features of an area using contour lines (lines of equal elevation) to portray the size, shape, and elevation of the features.
TOPOGRAPHY--Physical features, such as hills, valleys, and plains that shape the surface of the Earth.
TOTAL DISSOLVED SOLIDS (TDS)--The total quantity of minerals (salts) in water, usually measured by weight in milligrams per liter (mg/L) or parts per million (ppm).
TRACE GAS--minor constituent of the atmosphere. The most important trace gases contributing to the greenhouse effect are water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, ammonia, nitric acid, nitrous oxide, ethylene, sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, dichloro-fluoromethane or Freon 12, trichlorofluoromethane or Freon 11, methyl chloride, carbon monoxide, and carbon tetrachloride.
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS--idea that no one takes responsibility for things that everybody owns, generally associated with Garrett Hardin.
TRANSITION CURVE or GROWTH CURVE or RESPONSE CURVE--graph indicating the fraction of ground-water pumpage derived from ground-water storage or a surface-water source plotted against time.
TRANSMISSIVITY--flow capacity of an aquifer measured in volume per unit time per unit width. Equal to the product of hydraulic conductivity times the saturated thickness of the aquifer.
TRANSPARENCY--(Mineralogy) The degree to which light passes through a small piece of a mineral. If objects can be seen through the mineral, it is said to be transparent. If no light passes through and nothing can be seen through a small piece, the mineral is called opaque. Minerals that are neither opaque or transparent are said to be translucent.
TRANSPIRATION--vaporization of water given off by plants.
TRAVERTINE--A finely crystalline limestone deposited by ground water and surface water. Travertine can be found in Kansas caves and around springs and some waterfalls.
TRIANGULATED IRREGULAR NETWORK (TIN)--a set of adjacent, non-overlapping triangles computed from irregularly spaced points with x,y coordinates and z values (from "Surface Modeling with TIN", Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., 1994).
TRIASSIC PERIOD--The interval of geologic time between approximately 248.2 and 205.7 million years ago.
TROGLOBITE--One of four classes of cavernicoles (life forms found in caves). These four classes are (1) accidental, animals washed into caves or those that fall into sinkholes, (2) trogloxene, animals that visit caves, (3) troglophile, animals that live in caves, and (4) troglobite. A troglobite is a cave-adapted animal living permanently underground in the dark zone of caves and only accidentally leaving it. It is completely dependent on caves for survival and cannot survive outside caves for long periods.
TROGLOPHILE--An animal that habitually enters or lives permanently within the dark zone of a cave but is also capable of living outside because it is not evolved or adapted specifically to caves. Some accidentals are capable of becoming troglophiles if they are able to survive in caves.
TROGLOXENE--An animal that visits caves but is dependent on the outside for food. Trogloxenes included all cave bats, people, raccoons, and other surface species that must spend part of their lives outside caves to survive.
TROPOPAUSE--boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere (above 8 km in polar regions and about 15 km in tropical regions), usually characterized by an abrupt change of lapse rate. The regions above the troposphere have more increased atmospheric stability than those below. The tropopause marks the vertical limit of most clouds and storms.
TROPOSPHERE--inner layer of the atmosphere below about 15 km, within which there is normally a steady decrease of temperature with increasing altitude. Nearly all clouds form and weather conditions manifest themselves within this region, and its thermal structure is caused primarily by the heating of the earth's surface by solar radiation, followed by heat transfer by turbulent mixing and convection.
TURNOVER RATE--fraction of the total amount
of mass (e.g., carbon) in a given pool or reservoir that is released from
or that enters the pool in a given length of time. The turnover rate
of carbon is often expressed as gigatons carbon (GtC)/year.
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ULTRAVIOLET (UV) RADIATION--type of shortwave radiation that is damaging to plants and animals, including humans. The amount of UV radiation that reaches the earth depends on the amount of stratospheric ozone. An increase in UV radiation due to a decrease in stratospheric ozone will pose a direct threat to human health (increased cataracts, immune suppressions, and skin cancers) and will have a negative impact on plant yields for many species.
UNCED--United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Held in Rio de Janeiro, June, 1992. Also referred to a s the Earth Summit.
UNCONFINED AQUIFER--An aquifer that is not bounded above by an aquitard; water levels in wells screened in an unconfined aquifer coincide with the elevation of the water table.
UNCONFORMITY--Contact between rock layers representing a break or interruption in the desposition process, which creates a gap in the geologic record.
UNCONSOLIDATED DEPOSITS--Sediment that is loosely arranged or unstratified, or whose particles are not cemented together.
UNDERFIT RIVER--see misfit river.
UNDERFLOW--(1) ground-water flow within a streambed below a surface stream; (2) lateral movement of water through the soil zone, also known as interflow.
UNSATURATED ZONE--Also known as the vadose zone, this is the area of soil or rock just above the water table.
UPCONING--The upward movement of ground water from a deeper to shallower position in the aquifer, usually induced by pumping a well or discharge to the surface.
UPGRADIENT--In reference to the movement of ground water, the "upstream" direction from a point of reference (e.g., a well).
UPLIFT--An upheaval. Elevation or raising of part of the earth's surface through forces within the earth.
UPPER ARKANSAS RIVER CORRIDOR--The valley of the Arkansas River fromt he Colorado-Kansas state line to eastern Ford County. The corridor includes the area irrigated by Arkansas River water.
U.S. EPA--United States Environmental Protection Agency. Kansas is in EPA Region VII along with Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska; the Region VII office is in Kansas City, KS.
USGS--United States Geological Survey. The
Kansas District of the USGS collects data and conducts research on water
resources. Their main office is in Lawrence, KS.
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VADOSE--Indicating the area below the earth surface but above the water table. Includes all ground water above the water table. In caves vadose water forms stalactites and other dripstone speleothems. Vadose cave streams carve trenches and canyons and vertical pits as the water table lowers with time.
VADOSE ZONE--unsaturated (not completely filled with water) zone lying between the earth's surface and the top of the ground water. Also known as unsaturated zone and zone of aeration.
VESTED RIGHT--right to continue the use of water having actually been used for a beneficial use on or before June 28, 1945, when the Kansas Water Appropriation Act became effective.
VOID--pore space or other openings in rock. The openings can be very small to cave size and are filled with water below the water table.
VOLATIVE ORGANIC COMPOUND (VOC)--organic chemical that volatilizes (evaporates) relatively easily when exposed to air.
VOLUME FLUX--see flux.
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WADI--steep-sided valley, rocky ravine, river bed, or gully that is usually dry in a semi-desert or desert area of the Sahara and the Arab countries of southwest Asia.
WALDSTERBEN--German word meaning forest death and used to describe the rapid decline and death of large areas of trees. It is thought to be a result of ozone pollution that damages the leaves of trees, resulting in stunted growth and an inability to regenerate. More than half of Germany's forests are affected, as well as extensive areas in most other European and Scandinavian countries. The main cause is considered to be pollution from vehicle exhausts.
WATER BALANCE--A mathematical construction that shows the amount of water leaving and entering a given watershed or aquifer.
WATER DEMAND--amount of water used over a period of time at a given price.
WATER FLUX--A volume of water per unit area per time.
WATER QUALITY--physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of water and how they relate to it for a particular use.
WATER POTENTIAL--see soil-water potential.
WATER RIGHT--any vested or appropriation right under which a person may lawfully divert and use water. It is a real property right appurtenant to and severable from the land on or in connection with which the water is used; such water right passes as an appurtenance with a conveyance of the land by deed, lease, mortgage, will, or inheritance.
WATERSHED--The area drained by a single stream or river. The Arkansas River watershed, for example, includes that area from which water eventually flows into the Arkansas River.
WATER TABLE--A fluctuating demarcation line between the unsaturated (vadose) zone and the saturated (phreatic) zone that forms an aquifer. It may rise or fall depending on precipitation (rainfall) trends. The water table is semiparallel to the land surface above but is not always a consistent straight line. Because of impervious beds of shale, etc., local water tables can be perched above the area's average water table.
WATER TRANSFER--legal change in a water right reflecting some combination of a change in ownership of diversion, place of use, and/or type of use to another.
WATER USE EFFICIENCY (WUE)--ratio of crop biomass accumulation or yield to the amount of water used in evapotranspiration.
WATER VAPOR--Water present in the atmosphere in gaseous form; the source of all forms of condensation and precipitation. Water vapor, clouds, and carbon dioxide are the main atmospheric components in the exchange of terrestrial radiation in the troposphere serving as a regulator of planetary temperatures via the greenhouse effect. Approximately 50 percent of the atmosphere's moisture lies within about 1.84 km of the earth's surface, and only a minute fraction of the total occurs above the tropopause.
WATER-VAPOR FEEDBACK--process in which an increase in the amount of water vapor increased the atmosphere's absorption of longwave radiation, thereby contributing to a warming of the atmosphere. Warming, in turn, may result in increased evaporation and an increase int he initial water vapor anomaly. This feedback, along with carbon dioxide, is responsible for the greenhouse effect and operates virtually continuously in the atmosphere.
WATER YEAR--12-month period of which the U.S. Geological Survey reports surface-water supplies. Water years begin October 1 an dend the following September 30, and are designated by the calendar year in which the water year ends.
WCED (WORLD COMMISION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT)--United Nations Commission, also known as the Brundtland Commission, which garnered almost worldwide political concensus on the urgent need for sustainability; its findings are published in the widely acclaimed report "Our Common Future" (1987).
WEAK SUSTAINABILITY--view that sustainable development can be assured through the conservation of aggregate capital alone; that is, although natural capital is being depleted, it is being replaced with even more valuable human-made capital and thus the value of the aggregate stock-comprising both human-made and the remaining natural capital-is increasing over time in terms of its ability to maintain or enhance human welfare.
WEATHER--day-to-day variation in atmospheric conditions. Compare climate.
WEATHER GENERATOR (stochastic)--program that generates weather values for daily precipitation, temperatures, and solar radiation based on observed historical patterns.
WEATHER MODIFICATION--deliberate modification of weather so as to increase precipitation and thereby increase water supplies. Cloud seeding is the most common method of weather modification.
WELL--A vertical excavation into an underground rock formation.
WELL SCREEN--A slotted section of pipe usually placed in the borehole adjacent to the main aquifer unit or units that supplies the well with water.
WELL YIELD--Maximum pumping rate that can be supplied by a well without drawing the water level in the well below the pump intake. See YIELD.
WETLAND--Land with a wet spongy soil, where the
water table is at or above the land surface for at least part of the year.
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YIELD--amount of water that can be supplied from
a reservoir, aquifer, basin, or other system during a specified interval
of time. This time period may vary from a day to several years depending
upon the size of the system involved.
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ZONE OF AERATION--see vadose zone.
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Buchanan, R. C., and Buddemeier, R. W., compilers, 1993, Kansas Ground Water--An Introduction to the State's Water Quantity, Quality, and Management Issues: Kansas Geological Survey, Educational Series 10, 44 p.
Buchanan, Rex C., and McCauley, James R., 1987, Roadside Kansas--A Traveler's Guide to Its Geology and Landmarks: Lawrence, Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 365 p.
Buchanan, Rex, McCauley, Jim, and Sawin, Bob, 1996, Field Trip to the Kanopolis Lake Area: Kansas Geological Survey, Open-file Report 96-41, 17 p.
Evans, Catherine S., 1988, Glossary; in, From Sea to Prairie--A Primer of Kansas Geology: Kansas Geological Survey, Educational Series 6, 60 p.
Goodin, D. G., Mitchell, J. E., Knapp, M. C., Bivens, R. E., 1995, Climate and Weather Atlas of Kansas--An Introduction: Kansas Geological Survey, Educational Series 12, 24 p.
Jackson, Julia A., editor, 1997, Glossary of Geology (Fourth Edition): Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute, 769 p.
Oceans of Kansas Paleontology: http://www.oceansofkansas.com/index.html (3/31/99).
Sophocleous, Marios, 1998, Selective Glossary of Hydrology and Environmental Sustainability-related Terms; in, Perspectives on Sustainable Development of Water Resources in Kansas, Marios Sophocleous, ed.: Kansas Geological Survey, Bulletin 239, 239 p.
Young, James, and Beard, Jonathan, 1993, Caves in
Kansas: Kansas Geological Survey, Educational Series 9, 47 p.
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