Water Quality Test
Brookwood Invitational 2013
Team _________________________________ Team # or Letter ______________
Student Names _______________________________________________________
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Write the letter of the correct answer to the left of the number in the blank
_____1. What is an estuary?
a. A place where wildlife is protected from hunting and fishing
b. A muddy beach
c. A place where fresh water from the land mixes with salt water from the ocean
d. A bay where building and development are not allowed
_____2. Which is saltiest?
a. Ocean water
b. River water
c. Estuary water
_____3. What is a watershed?
a. A tank to collect rainwater for gardening
b. The area of land that drains into a body of water
c. The top blades of eelgrass that shed rainwater
d. All the animals that live in a single body of water
_____4. How are pipefish adapted to life in an eelgrass meadow?
a. They look like eelgrass (thin and green), and are camouflaged.
b. They can live with very little oxygen in the water.
c. Because the eelgrass meadow is very dark, they have learned to give off their own light
like fireflies.
d. They close up their shells to keep from drying out.
______5. Why is detritus important in an estuary?
a. It is food for many animals.
b. It gives the water its beautiful blue color.
c. It captures sunlight energy and turns it into food for animals.
d. All of the above
_____6. Why are estuaries important to salmon?
a. Adult salmon eat the estuary eelgrass.
b. Young salmon find food, shelter, and a place to adapt to salt water.
c. Salmon lay their eggs on eelgrass in the estuary.
d. They hide in the mud at low tide.
_____7. Have people built cities on estuaries?
a. Yes – most of the world’s largest cities are on estuaries.
b. No – estuaries are protected from building.
c. No – mud around estuaries is too soft to build on.
_____8. How have people used estuaries?
a. For growing fresh water fish.
b. For testing deep-water submarines.
c. For surfing.
d. For food and boating.
_____9. Estuaries have also been called:
a) Bays
b) Lagoons
c) Sounds
d) Sloughs
e) All of the Above
_____10. The Chesapeake Bay in Maryland is an example of what type of
estuary?
a) Coastal plain estuary
b) Tectonic estuary
c) Bar‐built estuary
d) Fjord
_____11. Why are estuaries important to our environment?
a) They provide homes for many species of wildlife.
b) They are important nursery areas for a variety of marine life.
c) They help to filter pollutants from the water.
d) All of the above
_____12. The high productivity of estuaries has been attributed to the presence of
several primary production units. Which of the following would NOT be considered a
primary production unit in an estuary ecosystem?
a) Phytoplankton suspended within the sunlight zone of
the water column.
b) Benthic algae, microscopic plants living on the
sediment surface wherever sunlight reaches the bottom.
c) Macroflora, such as marsh grasses which are the foundation of many food webs and
provide nursery grounds for most coastal shellfish and finfish.
d) Juvenile zooplankton brought to the estuary by tides
after hatching offshore.
_____13. The blue crab is one of the fastest swimming crabs in the
world. Their incredible swimming speed can best be attributed
to the crab’s…
a) large claws.
b) jointed legs.
c) body shape.
d) “paddle‐like” rear feet
_____14. Many shore birds feed on the mud flats of estuaries.
When would be the best time for the birds to catch stranded
fish and invertebrates?
a) During tidal ebb.
b) During tidal flow.
_____15. Water in most estuaries is brackish because of the mixing of fresh water
from rivers and saltwater from incoming tides. A drought in the bay watershed would
most likely cause the water in the bay to …
a) increase in salinity.
b) decrease in salinity.
c) stay the same.
d) rise.
_____16. Estuaries formed by rising sea level invading rivers since the last ice age are
called
A. Coastal plain estuaries
B. Tectonic estuaries
C. Bar-built estuaries
D. Fjords
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Macroinvertabrate Identification Answer sheet (use printed pictures or projected images if available)
Name
Pollution Sensitivity Class
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Match the type of water pollution with its source
Type of Water Pollution
Source of Pollution
____ Chemicals
A. Run-off, improperly treated effluent
_____ Biodegradable waste
B. Over use of fertilizers, run-off from
fields, improper disposal of containers,
wastewater treatment
_____ Heat
C. Industrial run-off, wastewater treatment
_____Sedimentation
D. Construction sites, farming and livestock
operations, logging, flooding, city run-off,
dams
_____ Nutrients
E. Human-made, improper disposal, run-off,
dams, landfill leachate, industrial discharge,
acid rain
Identify each numbered arrow.
3.
5.
2.
4.
1.
6.
Find the Q-value
A Q-value is a way of standardizing all the different water quality test results so that they can be
combined and used to find an overall water quality value for the river. You can think of the Q-value
like a score on a test. Less than 50 is like a failing grade, whereas 90 or more is like an “A.”
Use the following data and charts to determine the Q-value for each of types of water quality data
collected from the Yellow River. Find your water quality value on the x-axis. Determine where
that value intersects the curved line on the graph, then follow it horizontally across to the y-axis and
read the Q-value. Then calculate the WQI.
Yellow River Water Quality Data
Test Type
Raw Data
Dissolved
Oxygen
Fecal Coliform
pH
BOD
Temperature
Total Phosphate
Nitrates
Turbidity
Total Solids
6.75 ppm
5 colonies
7.8
6 mg/L
Upstream 22.00C
Testing Site 25.00C
.4 mg/L
10 mg/L
52/cm
450 mg/l
WQI ________________________
Phosphate Conversion
Q-Value
Weighting Total
Factor
0.17
0.16
0.11
0.11
0.11
0.10
0.10
0.08
0.07
PO4 (mg/L)
Fecal Coliform Conversion
Fecal coliform (FC): colonies/100ml Note: if FC>100,000, Q=2.0
BOD conversion
BOD : mg/L Note: if BOD5>30.0, Q=2.0
Nitrate Conversion
Nitrate: mg/L Note: If NO-3>100.0, Q=1.0
Temperature Conversion
Change in Temperature: 'C
pH conversion
pH
Turbidity Conversion
DO conversion
Record your Salinity measurement in the blank below
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