Back to the full dot-point answer
NSWEarth and Environmental ScienceQuick questions
Module 8: Resource Management
Quick questions on Water resource management: HSC Earth and Environmental Science Module 8
6short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is catchment management?Show answer
A catchment is the area of land from which water drains into a particular river or reservoir. What happens on the land determines the quantity and quality of the water, so catchment management treats the whole catchment as a single system. It includes protecting vegetation to reduce erosion and runoff, controlling land uses that pollute water, maintaining wetlands that filter and store water, and coordinating the many users who share a catchment. Integrated catchment management recognises that upstream actions affect downstream users and the environment.
What is water quality?Show answer
Managing quantity is not enough; quality matters too. Salinity is a major Australian problem: clearing deep-rooted native vegetation raised water tables and brought salt to the surface and into rivers, damaging soils and water supplies. Nutrients from fertilisers and effluent cause algal blooms, including toxic blue-green algae that have closed long stretches of the Murray and Darling rivers. Sediment from eroding land smothers habitats.
What is the Australian context?Show answer
The Murray-Darling Basin is the standard Australian example. It drains about one-seventh of the continent, supports a large share of Australia's irrigated agriculture, and sustains internationally significant wetlands. Decades of over-allocation, where more water was promised to users than the rivers could sustainably provide, combined with droughts to damage the river system, kill fish and dry out wetlands. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan, introduced in 2012, sets sustainable diversion limits that cap how much water can be extracted and returns water to the environment through buybacks and efficiency measures.
What is vague Australian reference?Show answer
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan, sustainable diversion limits and over-allocation are the specific terms markers look for; name them.
What is q1?Show answer
Explain what is meant by an environmental flow and why it is central to sustainable water management. [3 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Analyse how the Murray-Darling Basin Plan attempts to balance human and environmental water demands, and why it remains contested. [5 marks]
Have a question we have not covered?
This dot-point answer is short enough that we have not extracted many short questions yet. Read the full dot-point answer or ask Mo, our study assistant, in the chat for follow ups.