Water and carbon cycles: Key terms

Frage	Antworten
Flow/transfer	A form of linkage between one store/component and another that involves movement of energy or mass.
Input	The addition of matter and/or energy into a system.
Store/component	A part of the system where energy/mass is stored or transformed.
System	A set of interrelated components working together towards some kind of process.
Atmospheric water	Water found in the atmosphere; mainly water vapour with some liquid water (cloud and rain droplets) and ice crystals.
Cryospheric water	The water locked up on the Earth's surface as ice.
Hydrosphere	A discontinuous layer of water at or near the Earth's surface. It includes all liquid and frozen surface waters, groundwater held in soil and rock and atmospheric water vapour.
Oceanic water	The water contained in the Earth's oceans and seas but not including such inland seas as the Caspian Sea.
Terrestrial water	This consists of groundwater, soil moisture, lakes, wetlands and rivers.
Condensation	The process by which water vapour changes to liquid water.
Cryospheric processes	Those processes that affect the total mass of ice at any scale from local patches of frozen ground to global ice amounts. They include accumulation and ablation.
Drainage basin	This is an area of land drained by a river and its tributaries. It includes water found on the surface, in the soil and in near-surface geology.
Evaporation	The process by which liquid water changes to a gas. This requires energy, which is provided by the sun and aided by the wind.
Evapotranspiration	The total output of water from the drainage basin directly back to the atmosphere.
Groundwater flow	The slow movement of water through underlying rocks.
Infiltration	The downward movement of water from the surface into soil.
Interception storage	The precipitation that falls on the vegetation surfaces or man-made cover and is temporarily stored on these surfaces. Intercepted water either can be evaporated directly to the atmosphere, absorbed by the canopy surfaces or ultimately transmitted to the ground surface.
Overland flow	The tendency of water to flow horizontally across land surfaces when rainfall has exceeded the infiltration capacity of the soil and all surface stores are full to overflowing.
Percolation	The downward movement of water within the rock under the soil surface. Rates vary depending on the nature of the rock.
Run-off	All the water that enters a river channel and eventually flows out of the drainage basin.
Saturated	This applies to any water store that has reached its maximum capacity.
Stemflow	The proportion of precipitation intercepted by the canopy that reaches the ground by flowing down stems, stalks or tree bole.
Storm and rainfall event	An individual storm is defined as a rainfall period separated by dry intervals of at least 24 hours and an individual rainfall event is defined as a rainfall period separated by dry intervals of at least 4 hours (Hamilton and Rowe, 1949).
Throughfall	The portion of the precipitation that reaches the ground directly through gaps in the vegetation canopy and drips from leaves, twigs and stems. This occurs when the canopy-surface rainwater storage exceeds its storage capacity.
Throughflow	The movement of water down-slope through the subsoil under the influence of gravity. It is particularly effective when underlying permeable rock prevents further downward movement.
Transpiration	The loss of water from vegetation through pores (stomata) on their surfaces.
Water balance	The balance between inputs (precipitation) and outputs (run-off, evapotranspiration, soil and groundwater storage) in a drainage basin.
Bankfull	The maximum discharge that a river channel is capable of carrying without flooding.
Base flow	This represents the normal day-to-day discharge of the river and is the consequence of slow moving soil throughflow and groundwater seeping into the river channel.
Discharge	The amount of water in a river flowing past a particular point expressed as cumecs.
Lag time	The time between the peak rainfall and the peak discharge.
Peak discharge	The point on a hydrograph when river discharge is at its greatest.
Storm flow	Discharge resulting from storm precipitation involving both overland flow, throughflow and groundwater flow.
Storm hydrograph	A graph of discharge of a river over the time period when the normal flow of the river is affected by a storm event.

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Water and carbon cycles: Key terms

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	Erstellt von Eve Morgan vor fast 8 Jahre