Groundwater and fresh water supplies

Grade 9 Science Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Table, Where is Earth's water? (USGS), with columns Store, Percent of total water, Percent of freshwater: oceans, seas and bays, 96.54%, not fresh; ice caps, glaciers and permanent snow, 1.74%, 68.7%; fresh groundwater, 0.76%, 30.1%; fresh lakes, 0.007%, 0.26%; rivers, 0.0002%, 0.006%.

2. 1.

   USGS: about 2.5% of Earth's water is fresh, and about 30.1% of that is groundwater. About what share of all water is fresh groundwater, by Bo's math?

   • About 75%
   • About 12%
   • About 32.6%
   • About 0.76%
3. 2.

   USGS: about 68.7% of fresh water is ice and about 30.1% is groundwater. About what share is left for everything else, by Jun's math?

   • About 38.6%
   • About 98.8%
   • About 31.3%
   • About 1.2%
5. 3.

   Groundwater trapped between layers of clay or shale is under pressure (USGS). What kind of aquifer is this, by Kira's reading?

   • An unconfined water-table aquifer
   • A dry unsaturated zone
   • An underground river
   • A confined, or artesian, aquifer
6. 4.

   Why can water rise up an artesian well without a pump, by Luz's reading (USGS)?

   Use the picture in question 3.

   • The clay layers pump the water
   • An underground river flows uphill
   • The water table is above the land at each spot
   • Pressure in the confined aquifer pushes it up
7. 5.

   USGS: a hole dug at the beach fills with water to about the level of the ocean. What does the hole show, by Milo's reading?

   • Saturated sand below the water table, with water in its pores
   • Sand with no pore space
   • Water rising from deep in the mantle
   • An underground river under the beach
9. 6.

   USGS: near a pumping well, the water table dips into a cone of depression. What does the cone show, by Noah's reading?

   • The aquifer does not respond to pumping
   • An underground river feeds the well
   • Pumping raises the water table around the well's pipe
   • Pumping lowers the water table near the well
10. 7.

    USGS: in parts of the High Plains aquifer, levels fell more than 100 feet. If an example fall of 120 feet took 60 years, what is the average rate, by Pia's math?

    Use the picture in question 6.

    • About 7,200 feet a year
    • About 180 feet a year
    • About 2 feet a year
    • About 0.5 feet a year
11. 8.

    Recharge in, pumping out. USGS: groundwater is drinking water for about half the US population and nearly all of its rural population. What do the decline data suggest, by Ren's reading?

    • Pumping makes more groundwater
    • Groundwater is a small supply that few people use for drinking
    • Recharge keeps pace in each area
    • Pumping faster than recharge strains a key supply
13. 9.

    USGS: a dense granite near the surface may yield little water, while a porous sandstone far below may yield hundreds of gallons a minute. What does this show, by Zee's reading?

    • Sandstone holds zero water
    • Granite is the top aquifer rock
    • Porosity and permeability matter more than depth
    • Deeper rock yields more water in each case, whatever its type
14. 10.

    USGS: groundwater may move meters a day or centimeters a century. How many times faster is 3 m a day than 3 cm a century, by Ari's math?

    Use the picture in question 9.

    • About 365 times
    • About 3.7 million times
    • About 100 times
    • About 36,500 times