Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Water Cycle
- How does it work?
- Energy from the Sun heats the
surface of the Earth.
- Water is evaporated from
oceans, rivers, lakes by the sun
- The warm, moist air rises
because it is less dense.
- Condensation occurs when water vapour is turned back
into water droplets as it cools down and clouds are formed.
- Precipitation occurs as water droplets get bigger and
heavier they begin to fall as rain, snow and sleet, etc.
- Some water will be intercepted by vegetation
and then will evaporate from leaves
- Some of this water will eventually return to the air as
vapour through the process of transpiration. This slows
down or prevents some water flowing back to the river.
- Some water flows across the surface of the ground, This is called
surface runoff. This happens when water isn't allowed through
the surface because it is already saturated or impermeable
- Some water infiltrates into the soil. This through flow
moves more slowly back to the river than surface run-off.
- Some water percolates deeper into the ground and
is slowly transferred back to the river or sea.
- Percolation ~ When
water moves
downwards through
the soil.
- Stores and Transfers
- The major stores of water are the ice caps, land, ocean and the atmosphere.
The movement of water between these stores is called transfers.
- River drainage basins
- A river basin or drainage basin is an area
of land drained by a river and its
tributaries.
- The edge of the drainage
basin is known as the
watershed
- This can be compared to a sink or basin, which catches the water falling into
it. The water travels towards the centre and leaves the sink through a plug
hole.
- In a similar way, the water flowing through the river will
eventually leave the river basin through its mouth and enter the
sea or a lake.