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

   USGS: rivers and lakes hold about 22,300 cubic miles of fresh water, out of about 332.5 million cubic miles of all water. About what percent is that, by Esme's math?

   • About 15%
   • About 0.67%
   • About 6.7%
   • About 0.0067%, or 1/150 of 1%
4. 3.

   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 31.3%
   • About 1.2%
   • About 38.6%
   • About 98.8%
5. 4.

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

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

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

   • An underground river feeds the well
   • The aquifer does not respond to pumping
   • Pumping raises the water table around the well's pipe
   • Pumping lowers the water table near the well
8. 6.

   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 5.

   • About 180 feet a year
   • About 2 feet a year
   • About 7,200 feet a year
   • About 0.5 feet a year
9. 7.

   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 faster than recharge strains a key supply
   • Pumping makes more groundwater
   • Recharge keeps pace in each area
   • Groundwater is a small supply that few people use for drinking
11. 8.

    Model data: sand has 30% open space and lets water through fast; clay has 45% but lets it through very slowly. Which makes the better aquifer, by Tala's reading?

    • Clay, since slow flow keeps water near the well
    • Clay, since it holds more water
    • Sand, since water moves through it easily
    • Neither, since both are dry
12. 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?

    Use the picture in question 8.

    • 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
13. 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 8.

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