What is the Hydrological Cycle?

The total amount of water on the earth and in its atmosphere does not change but the earths water is always in movement. Oceans, rivers, clouds and rain, all of which contain water, are in a frequent state of change and the motion of rain and flowing rivers transfers water in a never-ending cycle. This circulation and conservation of earths water as it circulates from the land to the sky and back again is called the hydrological cycle or water cycle.
How does the Hydrological Cycle work?

The stages of the cycle are:

Evaporation Transport Condensation Precipitation Groundwater Run-off

Evaporation

Water is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere through evaporation, the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas. The suns heat provides energy to evaporate water from the earths surface. Land, lakes, rivers and oceans send up a steady stream of water vapour and plants also lose water to the air (transpiration). Approximately 80% of all evaporation is from the oceans, with the remaining 20% coming from inland water and vegetation.
Transport

The movement of water through the atmosphere, specifically from over the oceans to over land, is called transport. Some of the earths moisture transport is visible as clouds, which themselves consist of ice crystals and/or tiny water droplets. Clouds are propelled from one place to another by either the jet stream, surface-based circulations like land and sea breezes or other mechanisms. However, a typical cloud 1 km thick contains only enough water for a millimetre of rainfall, whereas the amount of moisture in the atmosphere is usually 10-50 times greater than this. Most water is transported in the form of water vapour, which is actually the third most abundant gas in the atmosphere. Water vapour may be invisible to us, but not to satellites which are capable of collecting data about moisture patterns in the atmosphere.
Condensation

The transported water vapour eventually condenses, forming tiny droplets in clouds.
Precipitation

The primary mechanism for transporting water from the atmosphere to the surface of the earth is precipitation. When the clouds meet cool air over land, precipitation, in the form of rain, sleet or snow, is triggered and water returns to the land (or sea). A proportion of atmospheric precipitation evaporates
Groundwater

Some of the precipitation soaks into the ground and this is the main source of the formation of the waters found on land - rivers, lakes, groundwater and glaciers. Some of the underground water is trapped between rock or clay layers - this is called groundwater. Water that infiltrates the soil flows downward until it encounters impermeable rock and then travels laterally. The locations where water moves laterally are called aquifers. Groundwater returns to the surface through these aquifers, which empty into lakes, rivers and the oceans.

Under special circumstances, groundwater can even flow upward in artesian wells. The flow of groundwater is much slower than run-off with speeds usually measured in centimetres per day, metres per year or even centimetres per year.
Run-off

Most of the water which returns to land flows downhill as run-off. Some of it penetrates and charges groundwater while the rest, as river flow, returns to the oceans where it evaporates. As the amount of groundwater increases or decreases, the water table rises or falls accordingly. When the entire area below the ground is saturated, flooding occurs because all subsequent precipitation is forced to remain on the surface. Different surfaces hold different amounts of water and absorb water at different rates. As a surface becomes less permeable, an increasing amount of water remains on the surface, creating a greater potential for flooding. Flooding is very common during winter and early spring because frozen ground has no permeability, causing most rainwater and meltwater to become run-off. This entire process repeats as illustrated in Figure 1.

A Water Balance
A considerable portion of river flow does not reach the ocean, having evaporated those areas with no natural surface run-off channels. On the other hand, some groundwater bypasses river systems altogether and goes directly to the ocean or evaporates. Every year, the turnover of water on Earth involves 577,000 km3 of water. This is water that evaporates from the ocean surface (502,800 km3) and from land (74,200 km3). The same amount of water falls as atmospheric precipitation, 458,000 km3 on the ocean and 119,000 km3 on land. The difference between precipitation and evaporation from the land surface (119,000 ? ?74,200 = 44,800 km3/year) represents the total run-off of the Earths rivers (42,700 km3/year) and direct groundwater run-off.

How does Water Supply and Sewage Disposal fit into the Hydrological Cycle?

We have seen that water flows into rivers, lakes and into groundwater storage. Most importantly, for our daily water needs, it also flows into our homes and taps. A network of underground pipes, pumping stations and treatment works ensures that clean, fresh drinking water is delivered by our local water utility to our homes every day of the week. After water has been used, the water utility collects, transports and then cleans this dirty water and returns it safely back into rivers where it can continue its journey downstream to the sea. The water utilitys responsibility begins at the precipitation stage of the hydrological cycle. Utilities in some water-scarce countries encourage the collection of rainwater from rooftops (rainwater harvesting) but in most of Europe the hydrological cycle begins with surface waters. Figure 2 illustrates the water utilitys role in the hydrological cycle.

Surface Waters

Rainwater takes the quickest route to the sea and flows into rivers, streams, lakes and aquifers. The water in the surface waters is clean enough to support a variety of wildlife, but it is not safe to drink and needs to be treated in a water treatment works to remove any harmful substances.
Water Treatment Works

see also Information Note FWR-WFD12 - Water Treatment and Supply.

Water is abstracted from underground sources via boreholes or alternatively is pumped from rivers and stored in reservoirs before being passed through sand filter beds which trap any dirt and organisms. It is then treated using the most up to date advanced water treatment (AWT) technology such as ozonation and carbon filtration (granular activated carbon) which remove the substances that we cannot see. (Note however that a large proportion of groundwater receives chlorination only and many surface water sources do not need AWT and use only coagulation/sedimentation/filtration.) Water Distribution Clean, fresh drinking water is pumped into an underground network of pipes and storage reservoirs and is not seen again until it reaches your tap. This guarantees that the water you drink remains clean and fresh. Water Use On average, in European countries, each person uses around 150 litres (33 gallons) of water every day. Baths, showers, washing up, washing clothes and toilet flushing all use large amounts of water. These activities transform clean tap water into dirty wastewater. The water utility not only supplies clean drinking water but also collects, transports and disposes of the dirty water after it has been used Sewerage Dirty water or sewage is collected firstly in drains and then in underground sewers and is transported via a sewerage system (a network of pipes and tunnels) to a sewage treatment works. Sewage Treatment Works see also Information Note FWR-WFD15 - Sewage Treatment. These works use natural micro-organisms to remove harmful substances from dirty water. The solid material (sludge) is separated from the liquid (effluent) and both are treated to produce clean effluent that can be released back to the river and bio-solids that can be used in agriculture as a fertiliser or incinerated to produce energy. Use as a fertiliser completes nutrient cycles and replenishes soil organic matter and sequestered carbon. The majority of sludge is treated by anaerobic digestion (AD), which produces biogas renewable energy. Completing the Cycle The river continues its journey back to the sea where the cycle starts again. Water evaporates to form clouds, condenses to droplets and eventually falls as rain on to the ground. Activities for Schools Thames Water website for schools water cycle

Water demand How much water do humans use? The answer depends on where they live and on their socioeconomic status. Under primitive conditions a person will consume three to five gallons per day for drinking and subsistence farming. In a city where water is also used for cleaning, manufacturing, and sanitation, per capita use is around 150 gallons per day. In the United States, which has among the highest water consumption rates in the world, each person uses an average of 1,340 gallons of water per day. Table 2 shows how much water is required to produce common goods and services. As discussed in Unit 2, "Atmosphere," and Unit 3, "Oceans," water resources are not distributed evenly in space or time around the world. Global circulation patterns create wet and dry climate zones, and in some regions seasonal or multi-annual climate cycles generate distinct wet and dry phases. As a result, some regions have larger freshwater endowments than others ( Although developed nations generally have more water available than many countries in Africa and the Middle East, some areas with good water endowments still are subject to "water stress" because they are withdrawing water from available supplies at extremely high rates (Fig. 8). High-intensity water uses in industrialized nations include agricultural production and electric power generation, which requires large quantities of water for cooling. In the United States electric power production accounts for 39 percent of all freshwater withdrawals (footnote 4), although almost all of this water is immediately returned to the rivers from which it is withdrawn. Agriculture consumes much more water because irrigation increases transpiration to the atmosphere. As of 2002, 1.1 billion people around the world (17 percent of global population) did not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people (42 percent of global population) lived without adequate sanitation. As a result, millions of people die each year of preventable water-related diseases. Most of the countries with inadequate supplies of safe drinking water are located in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, but problems persist elsewhere as well. For example, many households lack adequate sewage treatment services in Eastern Europe. And inequity among water users is widespread: cities often receive better service than rural areas, and many poor communities in both rural and urban areas lack clean water and sanitation (footnote 5). Although these challenges apply in many regions, it is hard to make broad generalizations about water resources at the global or national level; to paraphrase the famous saying about politics, all hydrology is local. The basic geologic unit that scientists focus on to characterize an area's water supply and water quality with precision is the watershed or catchment areaan area of land that drains all streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as a bay or river delta. Large watersheds, such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo contain many smaller subbasins (footnote 6). To see why water issues are best studied at the watershed level, consider Washington State, which is divided centrally by the Cascade Mountains. West of the Cascades, Washington receives up to 160 inches of rainfall annually, and the mild, humid climate supports temperate rainforests near the Pacific coast. Across the Cascades, rainfall is as low as six inches per year in the state's semiarid interior where groundwater is pumped from deep within basalt formations to grow wheat (Fig. 9). Urban Seattle residents and ranchers in rural eastern Washington thus face very different water supply, runoff, and water quality issues. Currently 10,000 to 12,000 cubic kilometers of freshwater are available for human consumption each year worldwide. In the year 2000 humans withdrew about 4,000 km 3 from this supply. About half of the water withdrawn was consumed, meaning that it was evaporated, transpired by plants, or contaminated beyond use, and so became

temporarily unavailable for other users. The other 50 percent was returned to use: for example, some water used for irrigation drains back into rivers or recharges groundwater, and most urban wastewater is treated and returned to service. Of the water withdrawn for human use, 65 percent went to agriculture, 10 percent to domestic use (households, municipal water systems, commercial use, and public services), 20 percent to industry (mostly electric power production), and 5 percent evaporated from reservoirs (footnote 7). About 70 percent of the water used for agriculture was consumed, compared to 14 percent of water used for domestic consumption and 11 percent of water used for industry. Both population levels and economic development are important drivers of world water use. If current patterns continue, the World Water Council estimates that total yearly withdrawals will rise to more than 5,000 km3 by 2050 as world population rises from 6.1 billion to 9.2 billion. During the 20th century, world population tripled but water use rose by a factor of six (footnote 8). The United Nations and the international community have set goals of halving the number of people without adequate safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015. Meeting this target will require providing an additional 260,000 people per day with clean drinking water and an additional 370,000 people per day with improved sanitation through the year 2014, even as overall world demand for water is rising

What is water pollution?

Water pollution is any chemical, physical or biological change in the quality of water that has a harmful effect on any living thing that drinks or uses or lives (in) it. When humans drink polluted water it often has serious effects on their health. Water pollution can also make water unsuited for the desired use. What are the major water pollutants? There are several classes of water pollutants. The first are disease-causing agents. These are bacteria, viruses, protozoa and parasitic worms that enter sewage systems and untreated waste. A second category of water pollutants is oxygen-demanding wastes; wastes that can be decomposed by oxygen-requiring bacteria. When large populations of decomposing bacteria are converting these wastes it can deplete oxygen levels in the water. This causes other organisms in the water, such as fish, to die. A third class of water pollutants is water-soluble inorganic pollutants, such as acids, salts and toxic metals. Large quantities of these compounds will make water unfit to drink and will cause the death of aquatic life. Another class of water pollutants are nutrients; they are water-soluble nitrates and phosphates that cause excessive growth of algae and other water plants, which deplete the water's oxygen supply. This kills fish and, when found in drinking water, can kill young children. Water can also be polluted by a number of organic compounds such as oil, plastics and pesticides, which are harmful to humans and all plants and animals in the water. A very dangerous category is suspended sediment, because it causes depletion in the water's light absorption and the particles spread dangerous compounds such as pesticides through the water. Finally, water-soluble radioactive compounds can cause cancer, birth defects and genetic damage and are thus very dangerous water pollutants. Where does water pollution come from? Water pollution is usually caused by human activities. Different human sources add to the pollution of water. There are two sorts of sources, point and nonpoint sources. Point sources discharge pollutants at specific locations through pipelines or sewers into the surface water. Nonpoint sources are sources

that cannot be traced to a single site of discharge. Examples of point sources are: factories, sewage treatment plants, underground mines, oil wells, oil tankers and agriculture. Examples of nonpoint sources are: acid deposition from the air, traffic, pollutants that are spread through rivers and pollutants that enter the water through groundwater. Nonpoint pollution is hard to control because the perpetrators cannot be traced.

Subject: Sources of Water Pollution a)What are the sources of water pollution? b)What are the effects of water pollution? c)What are the ways we can take to decrease those problem? a)What are the sources of water pollution? There are many causes for water pollution but two general categories exist: direct and indirect contaminant sources. Direct sources include effluent outfalls from factories, refineries, waste treatment plants etc.. that emit fluids of varying quality directly into urban water supplies. In the United States and other countries, these practices are regulated, although this doesn't mean that pollutants can't be found in these waters. Indirect sources include contaminants that enter the water supply from soils/groundwater systems and from the atmosphere via rain water. Soils and groundwaters contain the residue of human agricultural practices (fertilizers, pesticides, etc..) and improperly disposed of industrial wastes. Atmospheric contaminants are also derived from human practices (such as gaseous emissions from automobiles, factories and even bakeries). Contaminants can be broadly classified into organic, inorganic, radioactive and acid/base. Examples from each class and their potential sources are too numerous to discuss here. b)What are the effects of water pollution? The effects of water pollution are varied. They include poisonous drinking water, poisionous food animals (due to these organisms having bioaccumulated toxins from the environment over their life spans), unbalanced river and lake ecosystems that can no longer support full biological diversity, deforestation from acid rain, and many other effects. These effects are, of course, specific to the various contaminants. c)What are the ways we can take to decrease those problem? Science provides many practical solutions to minimizing the present level at which pollutants are introduced into the environment and for remediating (cleaning up) past problems. All of these solutions come with some cost (both societal and monetary). In our everyday lives, a great deal can be done to minimize pollution if we take care to recycle materials whose production creates pollution and if we act responsibly with household chemicals and their disposal. Additionally, there are choices we make each

day that also can affect the quantity of pollutants our actions will introduce into the environment. Heavily packaged foods, for instance, contain boxes, cartons, bottles etc.. made with polluting dyes, many of which are released from groundwater at municipal land fills. Whether we choose to drive to the corner store rather than walk or ride a bicycle will determine how much we personally contribute to acid and hydrocarbon emissions to the atmosphere (and ultimately to global fresh water supplies). In the end, there are many choices on the personal and societal level that we must make (consciously or not) that affect the amount of pollution our town or country will be forced to live with. Our standard of living and very way of life is based upon practices which are inherently "dirtier" than those of our distant ancestors, although they too polluted their environment to some extent. Without taking a step backward in terms of our standards of living, the answer seems to lie in a combination of many small changes in our daily practices and paying more for goods and services, so that manufacturers of various materials and drivers of automobiles (for instance) will have cleaner devices with which to conduct their activities.