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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 15 January 2025. Water located beneath the ground surface An illustration showing groundwater in aquifers (in blue) (1, 5 and 6) below the water table (4), and three different wells (7, 8 and 9) dug to reach it. Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in ...
Graphic on Groundwater Flow. Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems (or GDEs) are ecosystems that rely upon groundwater for their continued existence. Groundwater is water that has seeped down beneath Earth's surface and has come to reside within the pore spaces in soil and fractures in rock, this process can create water tables and aquifers, which are large storehouses for groundwater.
The rate of groundwater recharge is the time it takes for groundwater to replenish itself and extremely slow, leading to water shortages, as humans remove water from aquifers faster than the rate of recharge. [16] Due to such slow circulation of water, groundwater can remain polluted for decades, as the natural purification processes are so slow.
Groundwater can spend over 10,000 years beneath Earth's surface before leaving. [17] Particularly old groundwater is called fossil water . Water stored in the soil remains there very briefly, because it is spread thinly across the Earth, and is readily lost by evaporation, transpiration, stream flow, or groundwater recharge.
The flow of a river can act as a means of transportation for plant and animal species, as well as a barrier. For example, the Amazon River is so wide in parts that the variety of species on either side of its basin are distinct. [19] Some fish may swim upstream to spawn as part of a seasonal migration.
Groundwater pumping has been causing the land to sink at a record pace in California's San Joaquin Valley. New research suggests ways of addressing the problem. Groundwater pumping is causing land ...
Groundwater chemistry, in turn, is largely determined by the geology of the rocks that the groundwater flows through. [14] Thus, the characteristics of a fen, especially its pH, are directly influenced by the type of rocks its groundwater supply contacts. pH is a major factor in determining fen species composition and richness, with more basic ...
Groundwater is stored in two zones, one being the saturated zone, or Aquifer, the other is the pore space of unsaturated soil immediately below the ground surface. Soil moisture is the water held between soil particles in the root zone (rhizosphere) of plants, generally in the top 200 cm of soil.