The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity | Edexcel A-Level Geography (9GE0)

The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity

396 questions
30 subtopics
Paper 1: the compulsory physical topics
Paper 1 and Paper 3

Covers water as a global system and as a scarce resource: the hydrological cycle and the drainage basin, drought and flooding, how climate change is altering both, why water insecurity arises, and how supply is managed and fought over..

It covers the processes of the hydrological cycle, the stores of water and their relative size, fluxes, residence time, fossil water and the cryosphere, the drainage basin as an open system, what influences drainage basin processes, water budgets and river regimes, what shapes a storm hydrograph, reading a storm hydrograph, meteorological and hydrological drought, ENSO and human causes, the impacts of drought on wetlands and forests, the physical causes of flooding, human causes of flooding, the environmental and economic impacts of flooding, social impacts, case studies and synoptic charts, how climate change alters the hydrological cycle, eNSO, uncertainty and future projections, water stress, scarcity and the physical causes of insecurity, human causes of water insecurity and rising demand, physical and economic water scarcity, why economic scarcity happens, and the price of water, how water is used: industry, energy and agriculture, the consequences of water insecurity, competing users and trans-boundary rivers, the players in water conflict, and its causes, water transfers as a hard engineering solution, mega dams and their costs, desalination, and the case against the techno-fix, the value of more sustainable schemes of restoration of water supplies and water conservation, integrated drainage basin management and water treaties and the players in water management and the conflicts between them.

Sample questions from The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The processes of the hydrological cycle

Define evaporation in the context of the global hydrological cycle.

Show the answer
The process by which liquid water is converted into water vapour at the surface of water bodies or moist surfaces.
The drainage basin as an open system

Why does groundwater flow move more slowly than throughflow?

Show the answer
Because groundwater flow moves through permeable rock, which offers greater resistance than soil, causing slower lateral movement.
Reading a storm hydrograph

What does the falling limb (recession limb) of a storm hydrograph show?

Show the answer
The decrease in discharge as the river returns to base flow.
The physical causes of flooding

What happens when river discharge exceeds bankfull capacity during monsoons?

Show the answer
Rivers overflow their banks, causing widespread flooding across floodplains and low-lying areas.
How climate change alters the hydrological cycle

What would occur if evaporation rates from a lake increased significantly due to climate warming?

Show the answer
The lake's water level would decline, reducing the volume of water stored and potentially affecting downstream water availability.
Human causes of water insecurity and rising demand

How does agriculture contribute to rising water demand?

Show the answer
Agriculture is a major driver of water demand as irrigation for crops and water for livestock require substantial freshwater withdrawals, often accounting for the largest share of water use globally.
The consequences of water insecurity

How does inadequate water supply lead to ecosystem degradation?

Show the answer
Reduced water availability stresses habitats, disrupts food chains, and reduces the capacity of ecosystems to support species and ecological processes.
Water transfers as a hard engineering solution

Why might water transfers lead to inter-regional conflict?

Show the answer
Regions losing water may resent the transfer, leading to political disputes over water rights and allocation between source and receiving areas.

The 30 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The processes of the hydrological cycle	The hydrological cycle as a closed system driven by solar and gravitational energy, and evaporation, transpiration, evapotranspiration, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, percolation, surface runoff and groundwater flow.	11
The stores of water and their relative size	Recall questions on the oceans, cryosphere, groundwater, surface water, atmosphere and biosphere, and the share each holds.	14
Fluxes, residence time, fossil water and the cryosphere	Recall questions on annual fluxes, the global water budget, residence time, fossil water and irreversible cryosphere loss.	20
The drainage basin as an open system	Recall questions on the inputs, flows, stores and outputs of a drainage basin.	16
What influences drainage basin processes	How climate, soils, vegetation, geology and relief influence drainage basin processes, the effects of deforestation, urbanisation, reservoirs and water abstraction, and Amazonia as an example of human disruption through cattle ranching, soya cultivation and dams such as Belo Monte.	16
Water budgets and river regimes	What a water budget shows about soil moisture and water availability in tropical, temperate and polar climates, what a river regime is, how climate, geology and soils shape it, and the contrasting regimes of the Yukon, Amazon and Indus.	13
What shapes a storm hydrograph	Recall questions on basin size and shape, drainage density, rock type, soil, relief, vegetation and land use.	13
Reading a storm hydrograph	Recall questions on lag time, peak discharge, the rising and falling limbs, and flashy against flat hydrographs.	10
Meteorological and hydrological drought, ENSO and human causes	Meteorological and hydrological drought and why one lags the other, short and longer-term precipitation deficits, ENSO and the regions affected in its El Niño and La Niña phases, and human causes such as over-abstraction, with the Sahel and the Murray-Darling Basin as examples.	15
The impacts of drought on wetlands and forests	Recall questions on what drought does to wetland and forest ecosystems, and on what determines their resilience.	10
The physical causes of flooding	Recall questions on rainfall intensity and duration, monsoon, snowmelt and saturated ground.	16
Human causes of flooding	How deforestation, urbanisation, agricultural drainage and land use changes shorten lag time and raise peak discharge, and how channelisation, embankments, dams and upstream flood protection can increase flood risk.	8
The environmental and economic impacts of flooding	Recall questions on soil erosion, waterlogging, habitat loss, business closure and recovery costs.	15
Social impacts, case studies and synoptic charts	The social impacts of flooding on water supplies, telecommunications, buildings, displacement, disease and mental health, the UK floods of 2007 and 2012 as examples, flash against fluvial flooding, and reading synoptic charts for the conditions that bring flooding and drought.	19
How climate change alters the hydrological cycle	Recall questions on changes to precipitation, evaporation, glaciers, permafrost, soil moisture and river flow.	16
ENSO, uncertainty and future projections	Recall questions on why short-term oscillations and warming together make the system harder to predict.	11
Water stress, scarcity and the physical causes of insecurity	Recall questions on the thresholds for stress and scarcity, and on climate variability and salt water encroachment.	8
Human causes of water insecurity and rising demand	Recall questions on over-abstraction and contamination, and on population, living standards, industry and agriculture as drivers of demand.	17
Physical and economic water scarcity	Recall questions on what separates the two, and on where each is found.	12
Why economic scarcity happens, and the price of water	Recall questions on poverty, infrastructure, governance and corruption, and on what determines what water costs.	11
How water is used: industry, energy and agriculture	Recall questions on cooling, processing, power generation and irrigation, and on which sector uses most.	9
The consequences of water insecurity	Recall questions on the health, ecosystem and economic consequences of not having enough.	12
Competing users and trans-boundary rivers	Recall questions on how agriculture, industry, households and the environment compete, and on the Nile and Mekong.	8
The players in water conflict, and its causes	Recall questions on governments, farmers, corporations, NGOs and international bodies, and on dams, abstraction and pollution as causes.	15
Water transfers as a hard engineering solution	Recall questions on what a transfer scheme does, its costs and benefits, and China's South-North scheme.	15
Mega dams and their costs	Recall questions on the storage, power and irrigation they provide, set against displacement, ecosystem loss and sediment trapping.	11
Desalination, and the case against the techno-fix	Recall questions on how desalination works and what it costs, and on the criticisms of hard engineering generally.	13
The value of more sustainable schemes of restoration of water supplies and water conservation	Recall questions on smart irrigation, recycling and conservation, and on Singapore's Four National Taps.	22
Integrated drainage basin management and water treaties	Recall questions on the principle behind basin-wide management, and on the Nile, Colorado and the international frameworks.	11
The players in water management and the conflicts between them	Recall questions on governments, IGOs, regional authorities, NGOs and communities, and on upstream-downstream disputes.	9

The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity is 396 of the 3,433 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £7

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.