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The water cycle (or hydrologic cycle or hydrological cycle ), is a biogeochemical cycle that involves the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. The mass of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time. However, the partitioning of the water into the major reservoirs of ice, fresh water, salt water and ...
The total volume of water on Earth is estimated at 1.386 billion km 3 (333 million cubic miles), with 97.5% being salt water and 2.5% being freshwater. Of the freshwater, only 0.3% is in liquid form on the surface. [ 2][ 3][ 4] Because the oceans that cover roughly 70.8% of the area of Earth reflect blue light, Earth appears blue from space ...
In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the streams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. They are governed by the topography of land, whether a particular region is dominated by hard or soft rocks, and the gradient of the land. Geomorphologists and hydrologists often view streams ...
Human-made surface water is water that can be continued by infrastructures that humans have assembled. This would be dammed artificial lakes, canals and artificial ponds (e.g. garden ponds) or swamps. [ 3] The surface water held by dams can be used for renewable energy in the form of hydropower. Hydropower is the forcing of surface water ...
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the drainage divide, [ 1] made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills.
A geographic information system ( GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. [ 1][ 2] Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. [ 1] In a broader sense, one may consider such a ...
Fresh water is the water resource that is of the most and immediate use to humans. Water is critical to the survival of all living organisms. Many organisms can thrive on salt water, but the great majority of vascular plants and most insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds need fresh water to survive.
An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem found in and around a body of water, in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms — aquatic life —that are dependent on each other and on their environment. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. [ 1]