BASIC INFOGRAPHIC

WATER

EARTH

AND THE

HOW IS WATER STORED ON EARTH?

CRYOSPHERE

LITHOSPHERE

The cryosphere includes glaciers, polar sea ice, ice sheets, and frozen sections of oceans, such as the Antarctic and Greenland. Processes impacting upon the storage include precipitation (as snow), and outputs include ice melt.

Water can flow through the lithosphere into underground aquifers, but this transfer may be relatively slow, often taking many years. Some water is stored within bedding planes, joints, and pores in rocks and can remain there for hundreds of years.

ATMOSPHERE

HYDROSPHERE

Water is removed from water surfaces through evaporation and is then stored temporarily as water vapour and condensation before being released back to earth as precipitation. Additionally, transpiration from plants releases water vapour into the atmosphere.

It includes oceans, seas, rivers, streams, lakes and ponds. Processes impacting upon this important storage include runoff and precipitation inputting water to the store.

HOW MUCH WATER DOES THE EARTH HAVE?

97%

ABOUT

2.5%

of the earth's fresh water is unavailable: locked up in glaciers, polar ice caps, atmosphere, and soil.

of it is salt water.

of the Earth's surface is covered in water.

71%

3%

0.5%

of it is fresh water.

of the earth's fresh water is available fresh water.

The process of chemical weathering causes much groundwater erosion, including the formation of caves and sinkholes. Carbon dioxide and rainwater combine to form carbonic acid. The acid rain goes underground and reacts with some rocks causing it to be more acidic. Caves usually form when they are in the saturated zone, below the water table. Some of the water drips into the cavern form of rock layers above, carrying dissolved minerals. When the mineral-laden water reaches to air, the dissolved carbon dioxide escapes, and minerals get left behind. This cavern ceiling of icicle-like formation is called stalactite. If the water drips down on the floor, a pillar of minerals called stalagmite forms. The erosion weakens the entire layer of limestone. The ground collapses and makes a sinkhole.

How does water shape land?

Water erosions form V-shaped valleys, waterfalls, meanders, and oxbow lakes.

As a stream erodes the rock, it causes the valley's sides to become steeper. Mass movement on the stream slope causes a V-shaped valley. Waterfalls develop on V-shaped valleys since streams cross rock layers that differ in hardness. Harder layers resist erosion on top, and softer layers are worn away, which makes a cliff. When a river curves, the outside flows rapidly than the inside, which causes sediment to deposit inside and erode on the outside. Over time, this process forms a loop-like bend in the river called meander. Sediments build up along the new channel, cutting the old meander, which makes a separate, curved lake called an oxbow lake.

V-SHAPED VALLEY

OXBOW LAKE

MEANDER

WATER FALL