What are 4 facts about the water cycle?
- Every loaf of bread produced takes about 570 gallons of water from the Water Cycle.
- Every ton of steel produced takes about 8000 cubic feet of water from the water cycle.
- In the agricultural sector, it takes at least 2.5 gallons of water to grow one tomato. ...
- It takes about 5,200 cubic feet of water to produce a new car. ...
What are the processes of the water cycle?
Water cycle
- Description. The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in the ocean and seas. ...
- Residence times. ...
- Changes over time. ...
- Effects on climate. ...
- Effects on biogeochemical cycling. ...
- Slow loss over geologic time. ...
- History of hydrologic cycle theory. ...
- See also
- References. ...
- Further reading. ...
Does the water cycle naturally recycle water?
Through the natural water cycle, the earth has recycled and reused water for millions of years. Water recycling, though, generally refers to projects that use technology to speed up these natural processes. Water recycling is often characterized as "unplanned" or "planned."
What are the steps in the water cycle?
What is the water cycle?
- Step I: Evaporation The water cycle usually begins with evaporation. ...
- Step II: Condensation When water turns into vapor, the hot air rises into the atmosphere. ...
- Step III: Sublimation Sublimation is another process that helps create water vapors. ...
What is the function of water cycle for Class 3?
The water cycle shows the continuous movement of water within the Earth and atmosphere. It is a complex system that includes many different processes. Liquid water evaporates into water vapor, condenses to form clouds, and precipitates back to earth in the form of rain and snow.
What are the water cycle processes?
The water cycle consists of three major processes: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
What is the water cycle called?
the hydrologic cycleThe water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle, describes the continuous movement of water as it makes a circuit from the oceans to the atmosphere to the Earth and on again. Most of Earth's water is in the oceans. The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in the oceans.
What affects the water cycle?
Put simply, water evaporates from the land and sea, which eventually returns to Earth as rain and snow. Climate change intensifies this cycle because as air temperatures increase, more water evaporates into the air.
What are the 7 processes of the water cycle?
A fundamental characteristic of the hydrologic cycle is that it has no beginning an it has no end. It can be studied by starting at any of the following processes: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, interception, infiltration, percolation, transpiration, runoff, and storage.
What are the 5 stages of water cycle?
Student Features. Many processes work together to keep Earth's water moving in a cycle. There are five processes at work in the hydrologic cycle: condensation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and evapotranspiration.
What are the 6 stages of water cycle?
THE WATER CYCLE: A GUIDE FOR STUDENTSStep 1: Evaporation. The water cycle begins with evaporation. ... Step 2: Condensation. As water vaporizes into water vapor, it rises up in the atmosphere. ... Step 3: Sublimation. ... Step 4: Precipitation. ... Step 5: Transpiration. ... Step 6: Runoff. ... Step 7: Infiltration.
What is 7th water cycle?
Answer: The constant movement of water from the Earth to the atmosphere and back to the Earth through the process of evaporation, condensation and precipitation is known as the water cycle.
What is the water cycle?
Water cycle, also called hydrologic cycle, cycle that involves the continuous circulation of water in the Earth - atmosphere system. Of the many processes involved in the water cycle, the most important are evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and runoff. Although the total amount of water within the cycle remains essentially ...
Where does the water cycle begin and end?
The water cycle begins and ends in the ocean.
How is precipitation distributed?
Precipitation that falls to the Earth is distributed in four main ways: some is returned to the atmosphere by evaporation, some may be intercepted by vegetation and then evaporated from the surface of leaves, some percolates into the soil by infiltration, and the remainder flows directly as surface runoff into the sea. Some of the infiltrated precipitation may later percolate into streams as groundwater runoff. Direct measurement of runoff is made by stream gauges and plotted against time on hydrographs.
Why does condensation occur?
This condition occurs as the consequence of either cooling or the mixing of air masses of different temperatures.
How is water transferred in the hydrologic cycle?
This diagram shows how, in the hydrologic cycle, water is transferred between the land surface, the ocean, and the atmosphere. The idea that the waters of Earth undergo cyclical motions, changing from seawater to vapour to precipitation and then flowing back to the... A brief treatment of the water cycle follows.
What is the process of evaporation?
Evaporation, one of the major processes in the cycle, is the transfer of water from the surface of the Earth to the atmosphere. By evaporation, water in the liquid state is transferred to the gaseous, or vapour, state. This transfer occurs when some molecules in a water mass have attained sufficient kinetic energy to eject themselves from ...
What is an encyclopedia editor?
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. ...
What is the water cycle?
About 75 percent of our planet is covered by water or ice. The water cycle is the endless process that connects all of that water. It joins the Earth’s oceans, land, and atmosphere.
How did the Earth's water cycle begin?
It joins the Earth’s oceans, land, and atmosphere. The Earth’s water cycle began about 3.8 billion years ago when rain fell on a cooling Earth, forming the oceans. The rain came from water vapor that escaped the magma in the Earth’s molten core into the atmosphere.
What is the process by which water vapor becomes liquid?
condensation. Noun. process by which water vapor becomes liquid. evaporation. Noun. process by which liquid water becomes water vapor. sublimation. Noun. the process by which snow or ice becomes water vapor without first melting and passing through the liquid phase.
How does water vapor form?
When warmed by the sun, water on the surface of oceans and freshwater bodies evaporates, forming a vapor. Water vapor rises into the atmosphere, where it condenses, forming clouds. It then falls back to the ground as precipitation. Moisture can also enter the atmosphere directly from ice or snow. In a process called sublimation, solid water, such as ice or snow, can transform directly into water vapor without first becoming a liquid.
What happens when water vapor returns to the surface?
Most precipitation lands in the oceans. Precipitation that falls onto land flows into rivers, streams, and lakes.
Where is water stored on Earth?
About 1.7 percent of Earth’s water is stored in polar ice caps and glaciers. Rivers, lakes, and soil hold approximately 1.7 percent. A tiny fraction—just 0.001 percent—exists in the Earth’s atmosphere as water vapor.
How does moisture enter the atmosphere?
Moisture can also enter the atmosphere directly from ice or snow. In a process called sublimation, solid water, such as ice or snow, can transform directly into water vapor without first becoming a liquid. A misty cloud rises over Deer Streams National Park.
What is the water cycle?
The water cycle shows the continuous movement of water within the Earth and atmosphere. It is a complex system that includes many different processes. Liquid water evaporates into water vapor, condenses to form clouds, and precipitates back to earth in the form of rain and snow. Water in different phases moves through the atmosphere ...
What are the three phases of the water cycle?
Water is essential to life on Earth. In its three phases (solid, liquid, and gas), water ties together the major parts of the Earth’s climate system — air, clouds, the ocean, lakes, vegetation , snowpack , and glaciers . .
How does water move through the atmosphere?
Water in different phases moves through the atmosphere (transportation). Liquid water flows across land (runoff), into the ground (infiltration and percolation), and through the ground (groundwater). Groundwater moves into plants (plant uptake) and evaporates from plants into the atmosphere (transpiration). Solid ice and snow can turn directly ...
Why is it important to protect water sources?
It is important that water sources are protected both for human uses and ecosystem health. In many areas, water supplies are being depleted because of population growth, pollution, and development. These stresses have been made worse by climate variations and changes that affect the hydrologic cycle.
Why is water important to the ecosystem?
Its abundance and timely delivery are critical for meeting the needs of society and ecosystems. Humans use water for drinking, industrial applications, irrigating agriculture, hydropower, waste disposal, and recreation. It is important that water sources are protected both for human uses and ecosystem health.
How does lack of water affect civilization?
A lack of adequate water supplies, flooding, or degraded water quality impacts civilization — now and throughout history. These challenges can affect the economy, energy production and use, human health, transportation, agriculture, national security, natural ecosystems, and recreation.
What is the water cycle?
The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or the hydrological cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. During this process, water changes its state from one phase to another, but the total number of water particles remains the same. In other words, if it were possible to collect ...
What are the processes that move water?
There are many processes involved in the movement of water. Listed below are different stages of the water cycle. 1. Evaporation. The sun is the ultimate source of energy, and it powers most of the evaporation that occurs on earth. Evaporation generally happens when water molecules at the surface of water bodies become excited and rise into the air.
What happens when water drops from the clouds?
Above 0 degrees centigrade, the vapours will condense into water droplets. However, it cannot condense without dust or other impurities. Hence, water vapours attach itself on to the particle’s surface. When enough droplets merge, it falls out of the clouds and on to the ground below. This process is called precipitation (or rainfall). In particularly cold weather or extremely low air pressure, the water droplets freeze and fall as snow or hail.
Why does water cool down?
The water vapour that accumulated in the atmosphere eventually cools down due to the low temperatures found at high altitudes. These vapours become tiny droplets of water and ice, eventually coming together to form clouds.
What happens when water evaporates?
Evaporation generally happens when water mole cules at the surface of water bodies become excited and rise into the air. These molecules with the highest kinetic energy accumulate into water vapour clouds. Evaporation usually takes place below the boiling point of water.
What is the process of forming rivers called?
Runoff. If the water from rainfall does not form aquifers, it follows gravity, often flowing down the sides of mountains and hills; eventually forming rivers. This process is called runoff. In colder regions, icecaps form when the amount of snowfall is faster than the rate of evaporation or sublimation.
How does water change state?
Water changes its state through a variety of processes from evaporation, melting and freezing, to sublimation, condensation, and deposition. All these changes require the application of energy.
Why is the water cycle important?from earthandhuman.org
Here are some additional benefits: It regulates the Earth’s temperature. The evaporation, runoff, and infiltration processes help to remove impurities from water.
How does water loss occur?from nationalgeographic.org
loss of water from the Earth's soil by evaporation into the atmosphere and transpiration by plants.
What is the process of water vapor entering the atmosphere?from climatekids.nasa.gov
Water from plants and trees also enters the atmosphere. This is called transpiration. Warm water vapor rises up through Earth’s atmosphere. As the water vapor rises higher and higher, the cool air of the atmosphere causes the water vapor to turn back into liquid water, creating clouds. This process is called condensation.
What is the process of water vapor being released from plants and soil?from nationalgeographic.org
Transpiration is the process of water vapor being released from plants and soil. Plants release water vapor through microscopic pores called stomata. The opening of stomata is strongly influenced by light, and so is often associated with the sun and the process of evaporation.
How does the hydrological cycle affect the groundwater?from sciencedirect.com
The hydrological cycle in cold regions can be affected by both human activities and climate change, which may also affect the surface water and groundwater resources in the downstream arid and semi-arid areas. Rapid population growth and economic development as well as increasing intensive agricultural activities, wastewater discharge without efficient water reuse have been putting immense pressure on the groundwater resources. There are optimal groundwater table depths for the growth of vegetation in arid and semi-arid areas, and thus more attention should be paid to the relationship between the groundwater and plant water uptake for the healthy vegetation ecosystem during water sources management. Given the relationship of the groundwater and its interaction with surface water to the ecosystem and agriculture system in the arid regions, the integrated assessment of groundwater and surface water resources is critical for reasonable water management and exploitation of groundwater from aquifer systems and protecting water from pollution. It is usually difficult for decision-making and optimization in water management since it encompasses multi-disciplinary knowledge including engineering, social, economic and ecological constraints and objectives (Li et al., 2018; Wheater et al., 2010 ). The coordination of different aspects of the systems requires the use of numerical models as a support tool to integrate the multiple elements for groundwater decision-making and management. The groundwater resources should also be managed from the entire watershed-scale instead of local scale, considering both the upstream cold regions which mainly provides water to downstream arid and semi-arid areas which are the main water-consuming area.
What are the hydrological cycles in Central and Southwest Asia?from sciencedirect.com
The hydrological cycle in Central and Southwest Asia, of course, operates essentially the same as it does in the rest of the world, but it does have regional variations in character and timing of its phases, energy sources, winds, distributions, climate and topographic influences, and other controlling factors that need to be understood. The high mountains of the region serve as the water-tower catchments for the elusive moisture that passes over the dry lowlands, but fortunately for the people who live there, that moisture precipitates orographically in the mountains above them. Not so fortunately, however, the common devegetation and soil erosion that also occur so commonly in the region, end up despoiling the surficial environments and reducing water infiltration into the surficial soils so that the runoff is accelerated into flashfloods and is thereby wasted. In any case, multiple drainage basins have resulted, the development and use of which are the focus of this book.
How does the hydrological cycle work?from sciencedirect.com
The hydrological cycle of the earth is the sum total of all processes in which water moves from the land and ocean surface to the atmosphere and back in form of precipitation. The hydrological cycle is dependent on various factors and is equally affected by oceans and land surfaces. In the case of the land surface, vegetation plays a vital role in the maintenance of the hydrologic budget ( Pielke and Niyogi, 2009 ). The presence of vegetation increases the capacity of the land surface to retain moisture. Precipitation is then intercepted by plants and directly evaporated when captured by the canopy. The plants themselves transpire and aid in the creation of a major amount of water vapor through evapotranspiration processes. The surface runoff, in the case of bare ground, is much greater than in vegetated lands. As plants dominate the processes of energy, water vapor, and carbon exchange, their presence is critical to the functioning of the hydrological cycle.
How much of the world's water is freshwater?
Just three percent of the water on our planet is freshwater. A majority of this water, about two percent of the world total, is contained in glaciers and ice sheets or stored below ground.
Where is the remaining one percent of water found?
The remaining one percent is found in lakes, rivers and wetland areas or transported through the atmosphere in the form of water vapor, clouds and precipitation. Rain and snowfall replenish freshwater sources, making it vital to know when, where and how much water is falling at any given time.
What is the process of evaporating water from a plant's cuticle?
Cuticular Transpiration. Cuti cular transpiration is the evaporation of water from a plant’s cuticle. The cuticle is a waxy film that covers the surface of a plant’s leaves. This form of transpiration does not account for much of a plant’s water loss; about 5-10 percent of the leaves’ water is lost through the cuticle.
Why does water evaporate?
When water reaches the stomata, which are small holes in the leaves, it evaporates due to diffusion; the moisture content of the air is lower than the moisture in the leaf, so water naturally flows out into the surrounding air in order to equalize the concentrations.
How does transpiration occur?
First, water transpires from plants and enters the atmosphere as water vapor. Water from Earth’s oceans, lakes, and rivers also evaporates into the atmosphere. The evaporation from Earth’s waterways and from plants via transpiration is collectively known as evapotranspiration. In the atmosphere, the water forms clouds, and then it falls back to earth again as rain or snow. Precipitation collects again in earth’s waterways, or it goes into the soil, where it enables plants to grow. Then water evaporates from plants, oceans, lakes, and rivers again, completing the cycle.
What is the evaporation of water from the lenticels of a plant?
Lenticular Transpiration. Lenticular transpiration is the evaporation of water from the lenticels of a plant. Lenticels are small openings in the bark of branches and twigs. Not all plants have lenticels. The amount of water lost this way is very small compared to stomatal transpiration , but as with cuticular transpiration, ...
How does transpiration affect the ecosystem?
Transpiration has side effects for other organisms in an ecosystem. It helps maintain a certain moisture level in an environment, depending on the number and types of plants in an environment. This inadvertently allows some organisms to survive better than others depending on the moisture levels that they need to thrive.
Why is transpiration important?
Transpiration is very important for maintaining moisture conditions in the environment. As much as 10 percent of the moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere is from transpiration of water by plants.
What happens when water evaporates from the Earth?
In the atmosphere, the water forms clouds, and then it falls back to earth again as rain or snow.
What is the water cycle?
The water cycle describes how water is exchanged (cycled) through Earth's land, ocean, and atmosphere. Water always exists in all three places, and in many forms—as lakes and rivers, glaciers and ice sheets, oceans and seas, underground aquifers, and vapor in the air and clouds.
What are the three major processes of the water cycle?
The water cycle consists of three major processes: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
What is the process of a gas changing to a liquid?
Condensation is the process of a gas changing to a liquid. In the water cycle, water vapor in the atmosphere condenses and becomes liquid. Condensation can happen high in the atmosphere or at ground level. Clouds form as water vapor condenses, or becomes more concentrated (dense).
How does the water cycle affect the Earth's physical features?
The water cycle also influences the physical geography of the Earth. Glacial melt and erosion caused by water are two of the ways the water cycle helps create Earth's physical features.
What is the process of water evaporation?
The water cycle's evaporation process is driven by the sun. As the sun interacts with liquid water on the surface of the ocean, the water becomes an invisible gas (water vapor). Evaporation is also influenced by wind , temperature, and the density of the body of water.
How were the Great Lakes created?
The Great Lakes were created as an enormous ice sheet melted and retreated , leaving liquid pools. The process of erosion and the movement of runoff also create varied landscapes across the Earth's surface. Erosion is the process by which earth is worn away by liquid water, wind, or ice.
How does water affect the environment?
As water evaporates, for example, it absorbs energy and cools the local environment. As water condenses, it releases energy and warms the local environment.
