Unit 9- Running Water & Ground Water Flashcards
The Hydrologic cycle
describes the movement of water through Earth’s four spheres
– Geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere
What percentage of all global water is freshwater?
2.5%
What Percentage of fresh water is groundwater, surface water, and glaciers and ice sheets?
Groundwater: 30.1%
Surface water and other fresh water: 1.3%
Glaciers and ice sheets: 68.6%
How does the hydronic cycle work?
MovementThroughtheHydrologicCycle
– Water evaporates from the oceans, plants,
and soil and moves through the atmosphere
– Water leaves the atmosphere via precipitation
– Precipitation either
- Soaks into the ground (infiltration),
- Runs over the surface (runoff),
- Evaporates, or
- Is stored as part of a snowfield or glacier
– The Hydrologic Cycle is balanced:
• water is constantly moving from one reservoir to another, but the total amount on earth remains the same
Infiltration
Water soaked into the ground
Runoff
Water runs over the surface
What does the difference of runoff and infiltration depend on?
– Intensity and duration of rainfall
– The amount of water already in the soil – The type of soil
– Slope of the land
– Nature of the vegetative cover
• When the surface is impermeable or saturated, runoff is dominant
– Runoff is high in urban areas due to buildings, roads and parking lots
What is a drainage basin?
Where runoff from higher elevations run down to areas of lower elevation.
Ex. The Mississippi River drainage basin
What drains much of a land area?
Rivers
What determines the variety of rivers?
The variety of rivers that exist is a reflection of the different environments they are found in
What influences the character of a river?
Human intervention and climate differences.
There zones of a river system
- Sediment production (erosion dominates)
- Sediment transportation
- Sediment deposition
Sediment production (Zone of sediment production)
Where water collects sediment through erosion
Zone of transportation (sediment transportation)
Where the river receives the sediment from the zone of sediment production and carries it to the zone of deposition
Zone of deposition (sediment deposition)
Where sediment from the zone of transportation is deposited.
