Geohydrology

Question 2:

Average precipitation of all sampling sites = 42.15 inches

Question 4:

• Convert inches to kilometers

  • 45.6 inches * 2.54x10^-5 km = 1.158x10^-3 km

• Convert sq. Miles to sq. kilometers

  • 1,044 mi^2 * 2.59 = 2703.96 km^2

• Mulitply area times volume of water for total precipitation in the basin per year

  • 2703.96 km^2 * 1.158x10^-3 km = 3.13 cubic km of precipitation.

Question 5:

• The average annual runoff for the Winooski River is 1817.94 cubic feet per second. We must convert this to cubic km per year.

  • Convert the cubic feet to cubic km.

    • 2.83168e-11km^3 * 1817.94 ft^3 = 5.15x10^-8 cubic kilometers/sec

  • Convert seconds to years

    • 5.15x10^-8 km^3/sec * 3.154x10^7 = 1.62 cubic km/year

• Subtract total precipitation from the total discharge to calculate the amount of runoff

  • 3.13 km^3 - 1.62 km^3 = 1.51 km^3/year in runoff

• Runoff as a percent of total precipitation

  • 1.51 km^3 / 3.13 km^3 = .4824 * 100 = 48.24% runoff

Question 6:

• Average TDS

  • Convert metric tons of TDS/liter to /cubic km

  • 8.175x10^-8 * 1x10^12 = 81750 metric tons/cubic km

    • Mulitply by total average runoff per year

      • 81750 metric tons/km^3 * 1.51 km^3/yr = 123,442.5 metric tons per year of TDS

• Average suspended solids

  • 122,310 metric tons per year of suspended solids

It is interesting to see exactly how much precipitation and water is lost along the way to Lake Champlain. There are many places this water can go, but I'm sure a large portion of it infiltrates the surrounding soils and moves to the ground water table. Other sinks along the way could steal some of the water, as well as water that is trapped on the surface and evaporated.

The total dissolved solids in the Cuban water basin appears to be much higher than what we see here in Vermont. This could be due to the differing soil and rock compositions that we see in a tropical climate versus ours. If the soil and rock composition in cuba is more impacted by water runoff, the higher rates of weathering will produce a much higher rate of total suspended and dissolved solids in the water basin.