1.2 global water cycle

  1. Add a diagram of the water cycle (WC)?

The water cycle works through a closed system of water being evaporated from the ocean by the sun, turning it into clouds, letting them move across towards the mountains, where it rains. Then the water flows from the mountains down through rivers and back in to the sea, through other stores as well like glaciers, aquifers and lakes that all work in a similar way, with glaciers storing water through the winter until it flows down the mountains in the summer, aquifers holding water that then flows underground as groundwater into the seas and lakes working the same as seas.

  1. List the stores in the WC?

  2. Aquifers, glaciers, oceans and lakes

 

  1. List the Transfers?

  2. Rivers, clouds, streams, evaporation, percolation, surface runoff, groundwater, transpiration

 

  1. How could changes in the WC could affect Global Politics?

 

 

 

Conflicts can start if one political group or country has more water than others and hold water from the others with less water, which can lead to wars and conflicts. There can also be issues with famine which can lead to conflict over food being withheld from people and also cause moral issues with causing innocent people to suffer. Excessive evaporation can lead to flooding and sea levels rising can also cause floods. Thermal expansion can also cause issues as the sea takes up more space, putting island nations at risk.

Water Storage

  1. What are the 4 spheres where water can be stored? Hydrosphere- water being stored in areas like seas and lakes, cryosphere- water being stored as ice in ice sheets and glaciers during periods like ice ages, atmosphere- water being stored as clouds, lithosphere- water being stored in aquifers and as permafrost

  2. Water is affected in where it can be stored by urbanization and deforestation

  3. Why is fresh water divided so much?

  4. List the locations and % of fresh water?

  5. Fresh water makes up 2.5% of the earths water with 68.7% being in ice and snow and 30.1% being in groundwater

  6. Identify lowest and highest?

  7. Glaciers are the highest as they are able to hold high volumes of water in little space as a solid so it is relatively unaffected where surface water is the lowest because the water often percolates into the ground or is evaporated.

  8. Why is surface water the lowest %?

  9. Because the water will percolate into the ground and get absorbed as ground water or get evaporated into clouds or could run off into the sea

  10. Why does the Atmosphere hold the lowest of all the stores?

  11. Because it can only hold a small amount as water vapor before it condenses into rain

  12. What does ‘saline’ mean?

  13. Saline means water with a notable salt content, for example sea water has a very high salt content and is therefore saline where lake water hold no or only trace amounts of salt which makes it freshwater and not saline

 

Aquifers

  1. What is an aquifer?

  2. An aquifer is a store of water, similar to a lake but underground, often fed by groundwater flows

  3. Why are they important?

  4. Aquifers are important because they store around 30% of the earths freshwater

  5. Why is groundwater more important than frozen water?

  6. Because they are not contaminated in any way and don’t give off greenhouse gases like some ice does when it melts

  7. How do melting glaciers affect global ocean currents?

  8. Melting glaciers can affect global ocean currents by adding more water flowing in some directions than others and by rising sea levels

  9. Using Fig 3 and using your knowledge of global climates identify areas above aquifers which are under threat?

  1. Deserts and rainforests

  1. What does over-abstraction mean?

  2. When too much water is taken from aquifers, knocking the balance of the water table

  3. What is happening to aquifers which are being emptied too quickly?

  4. Saline aquifers occur, where sea water seeps through cracks in the rocks and makes the aquifer saline

 

Reduce the Use

  1. What is desalination?

  2. The act of removing salt from saline water

  3. Name and describe a farming technique used to save water?

  4. Drip irrigation

  5. What is ‘grey water’?

  6. Water that has been used for something that might cause contamination like washing clothes