ENVSCI 120

Final—Part I

Individual Part (75 points)

A.) Yse your sources of information to support your arguments, and focus on the problem.  Simply quoting web sources will not be rewarded significantly. 

B.) Please type if possible.  Feel free to write in figures, drawings, and equations if necessary by hand.

O1.) WATERSHEDS

Imagine if you were the environmental manager responsible for assessing the value of the Neponset River Watershed.  The area of the Neponset River Watershed is 300 km², and 330,000 people live in the Neponset River Watershed.  The Neponset River Watershed includes 14 communities, and the river itself meanders some 47 km from Foxborough to UMassBoston.   

a.) Describe five (3) ecosystem goods and (3) ecosystem services that the Neponset River Watershed provides. (6 points)

b.) Assign a dollar ($) value to (1) ecosystem services of the Neponset River Watershed.  Please be clear about how you assessed this economic value [for example, if clean air is worth $1 per person per day, the total ecosystem service is worth $1 x 365 days x 900,000 people= $328 million per year (but you cannot use clean air since I gave you this example)].  (3 points)

c.) Describe how would you assess (measure) the “health” of the Neponset River Watershed? In other words, what data/evidence would you present to the public to support statements that the ecosystem was “healthy” or “not healthy”. (4 points)

2.) CLIMATE AND WATER

a.) Explain the graph of water discharge vs. time (hydrograph) of the Charles River at Dover in 2016.      (2 points)

b.) Explain the graph of water discharge vs. time (hydrograph) of Town Brook in Quincy in 2016.            (2 points)

c.) What is different between the Town Brook and Charles River hydrographs for 2016?  What is the same between the Town Brook and Charles River hydrographs for 2016?  (3 points)

d.) At which one of these sites is it more likely to flood? And why? (3 points)

3.) AIR POLLUTION

The concentration of NO, NO₂, and O₃ are shown during a typical day in Los Angeles in A).

a.) What is NO_x? What are the sources of NO₂ in the urban atmosphere? (4 points)

b.) Why is there a peak in NO₂ in the morning? (3 points)

                http://www.onlineconversion.com/energy.htm

c.) If you install a low flow (1.1 gallon/min) showerhead instead of a regular (2.6 gallon/min) showerhead, how much water would you save for a 10-minute shower? (3 points)

7.) CLIMATE CHANGE

a.) Complex systems such as the climate are characterized by thresholds and feedback loops. Describe 2 positive feedback loops for global climate change. Describe 2 negative feedback loops for global climate change (4 points).

b.) If all of the ice in the Arctic Ocean were to melt, how high would global sea-level rise?  If all the ice in Greenland were to melt, how high would global sea-level rise? How likely is this in the next 10 years? (3 points)

c.) Describe three (3) specific cities that would be catastrophically impacted by sea-level rise by 2100. Please provide evidence and mechanisms in your response  (3 points)