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The total volume of water in rivers is estimated at 2,120 km 3 (510 cu mi), or 0.49% of the surface fresh water on Earth. [2] Rivers and basins are often compared not according to their static volume, but to their flow of water, or surface run off. The distribution of river runoff across the Earth's surface is very uneven.
Volumetric water content, θ, is defined mathematically as: = where is the volume of water and = + + is equal to the total volume of the wet material, i.e. of the sum of the volume of solid host material (e.g., soil particles, vegetation tissue) , of water , and of air .
A discharge is a measure of the quantity of any fluid flow over unit time. The quantity may be either volume or mass. Thus the water discharge of a tap (faucet) can be measured with a measuring jug and a stopwatch. Here the discharge might be 1 litre per 15 seconds, equivalent to 67 ml/second or 4 litres/minute. This is an average measure.
Hypsometric curves are commonly used in limnology to represent the relationship between lake surface area and depth and calculate total lake volume. These graphs can be used to predict various characteristics of lakes such as productivity, dilution of incoming chemicals, and potential for water mixing. [8]
The area required to calculate the volumetric flow rate is real or imaginary, flat or curved, either as a cross-sectional area or a surface. The vector area is a combination of the magnitude of the area through which the volume passes through, A , and a unit vector normal to the area, n ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {\mathbf {n} }}} .
The water balance is also referred to as a water budget. Developing water budgets is a fundamental activity in the science of hydrology. According to the US Geological Survey: [4] An understanding of water budgets and underlying hydrologic processes provides a foundation for effective water-resource and environmental planning and management.
The total mass of Earth's hydrosphere is about 1.4 × 10 18 tonnes, which is about 0.023% of Earth's total mass. At any given time, about 2 × 10 13 tonnes of this is in the form of water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere (for practical purposes, 1 cubic metre of water weighs 1 tonne).
The Penman equation describes evaporation (E) from an open water surface, and was developed by Howard Penman in 1948. Penman's equation requires daily mean temperature, wind speed, air pressure, and solar radiation to predict E. Simpler Hydrometeorological equations continue to be used where obtaining such data is impractical, to give comparable results within specific contexts, e.g. humid vs ...