Lesson 3.2.5.3

3.2.5.3 Water security Quiz: AQA Geography, Unit 2

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

In partnership with Revision Ninja

Lesson 3.2.5.3, Water security: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA Geography (7037), Unit 2: Human geography, written with Revision Ninja.

Host it live on the board and students join with a game code on their own devices, or revise alone with Free Play. The answers are revealed in the game.

Host this setFree Play

The 20 questions

  1. Water stress is commonly indicated when annual renewable water availability per person falls below:

    • 17 cubic metres
    • 1,700 cubic metres
    • 170,000 cubic metres
    • 1 million cubic metres

  2. A country has 1.5 billion cubic metres of renewable water per year and a population of 1 million. What is its water availability per person, and what does this indicate?

    • 1,500 cubic metres per person, indicating water stress
    • 1,500,000 cubic metres per person, indicating plentiful supply
    • 15,000 cubic metres per person, indicating abundance
    • 150 cubic metres per person, indicating scarcity below 1,000

  3. Which strategy increases water supply by capturing and holding water in a reservoir?

    • Storage, such as building a dam to create a reservoir
    • Greywater recycling within homes
    • Reducing irrigation on farmland
    • Desalination of seawater only

  4. Which strategy adds to water supply by producing fresh water from seawater?

    • Demand management through pricing
    • Leak reduction in distribution networks
    • Greywater recycling
    • Desalination

  5. Which component of water demand is largest in many arid regions?

    • Domestic gardening alone
    • Drinking water in households
    • Irrigation for agriculture
    • Recreational swimming pools

  6. Which environmental impact is most typically associated with a major dam and reservoir scheme?

    • An increase in the number of saline lakes across the region
    • Changes to downstream river flows and loss of land and habitats behind the dam
    • Permanent loss of all sediment from the river basin
    • Complete elimination of all aquatic habitats downstream

  7. Which sustainability issue is most associated with groundwater management?

    • Groundwater that is only useful for industrial cooling
    • Groundwater that never changes in quantity
    • Over-abstraction that lowers water tables and leads to land subsidence in some cases
    • Groundwater that is always replenished faster than it is used

  8. Which measure best reduces water demand in a city's homes?

    • Increasing the number of leaky pipes in the network
    • Removing all water meters from homes
    • Installing water-efficient fittings and promoting greywater reuse for gardens
    • Expanding lawns and water-hungry gardens

  9. Which water conflict is best described as an international dispute?

    • Disagreement between countries sharing a river over how much water each may abstract
    • A dispute between two farms within the same field
    • A dispute between two households over a garden hose
    • A dispute between two villages over a single well

  10. Which argument best evaluates the view that water security can be achieved by building more dams?

    • Dams can increase supply but may cause environmental and social costs and do not address demand
    • Dams only affect the atmosphere and not water resources, because reservoirs change local weather patterns but never the water itself
    • Dams always solve water security without any costs, because a single reservoir meets all future needs for every user in the region
    • Dams have no effect on water supply in any setting, since the water that flows into a reservoir is always lost to evaporation at once

  11. Which feature of the water cycle is most important for linking water supply to physical geography?

    • Climate, geology and drainage that determine the volume and quality of water available
    • The average speed of traffic on the nearest motorway, measured by roadside sensors and compared with the number of lorries each hour
    • The number of tourists visiting the coastline, counted at each beach and compared with the number of hotels within walking distance
    • The colour of the sky in the city centre, recorded at noon each day and compared with the number of clear evenings across the year

  12. Which strategy combines water supply and demand management most effectively?

    • Using water pricing and metering alongside investment in storage and leakage reduction
    • Increasing water consumption through subsidies with no metering, so every household pays a flat rate regardless of use
    • Building storage with no control over water use, so that reservoirs are filled without any limit on how much is drawn each year
    • Ignoring leakage in distribution networks to save money, since repairs are costly and leaking pipes do not reduce supply in practice

  13. A river is diverted to supply a distant city, reducing flows downstream. Which conflict is most likely to arise?

    • Dispute between the donor area downstream and the receiving city over water rights
    • Conflict only if the river is in another country, because disputes over water arise only between states and never within a single nation
    • No conflict because downstream users always benefit, since transfers add flow to rivers and improve conditions below the intake
    • No conflict because water transfers are always fair, since every scheme is designed to share benefits equally between all communities

  14. Which argument best supports the use of virtual water analysis in water security planning?

    • It shows that virtual water is a physical reservoir that can be pumped, since the volume stored in trade goods can be drawn from the ground
    • It proves that water is never used in agriculture, because the water embedded in crops is always removed before any product is traded
    • It reveals the hidden water embedded in trade, showing where water demand is effectively exported and imported
    • It removes the need to measure real water supplies, since the water in traded goods replaces every physical measurement of supply

  15. A catchment is 2,000 km2 and receives 800 mm of rainfall annually. Approximately how many cubic metres of rainfall fall on the catchment in a year?

    • 16 million cubic metres
    • 1.6 billion cubic metres
    • 160 million cubic metres
    • 16 billion cubic metres

  16. Which sustainability issue is most associated with greywater reuse?

    • Protecting human health by treating and separating greywater from sewage and avoiding contamination
    • Increasing the volume of greywater produced by households, which adds to waste flows and raises the amount sent to sewers each day
    • Increasing the risk of sewage contamination of drinking water without controls, since greywater mixed with sewage is treated as safe
    • Eliminating the need for any treatment of water, because greywater is always clean enough to be used without any processing at all

  17. Which statement about the environmental effects of water over-abstraction is most accurate?

    • It has no effect on ecosystems because water is replaced instantly, since rivers refill from rainfall within minutes of any abstraction
    • It always increases river flows and protects wetlands, because abstraction raises the water table and restores nearby habitats
    • It can reduce river flows, damage wetlands and harm aquatic ecosystems
    • It only affects the atmosphere through increased rainfall, because abstraction raises humidity and so changes the weather above the valley

  18. A reservoir holds 50 million cubic metres and loses 10% of its volume to evaporation each year. How much water is lost per year?

    • 5 million cubic metres
    • 45 million cubic metres
    • 0.5 million cubic metres
    • 10 million cubic metres

  19. A region has 900 cubic metres of renewable water per person per year. Using standard thresholds, how is it best described?

    • Water abundant, above 1,700 cubic metres per person, which places the region well above the stress threshold and so beyond any shortage
    • Water stressed but above the scarcity threshold of 1,000, since the figure lies between the two standard thresholds used for assessment
    • Water scarce, below the 1,000 cubic metre scarcity threshold
    • Water secure, with no stress or scarcity, because supplies per person comfortably exceed every threshold in water assessment

  20. Which argument best evaluates the value of greywater recycling for water security?

    • It is only useful for industrial cooling and never for homes, since domestic greywater cannot be applied to any residential use
    • It has no value because greywater cannot be reused, since the water in baths and sinks is too contaminated for any purpose at all
    • It increases demand for potable water because it must be mixed with fresh water, so every reuse scheme needs more drinking water
    • It reduces demand for potable water, but needs separate plumbing and careful treatment to protect health

All AQA Geography quizzes