Water Resources
WATER RESOURCES
The sources of water that are useful to human life are called water resources. Uses of water include agricultural, industrial, household and recreational activities. The majority of human uses require fresh water.
97 percent of the water on the Earth is salt water and only 3 percent is fresh water; slightly over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. The remaining unfrozen fresh water is found mainly as groundwater, with only a small fraction present above ground or in the air.
Sources of fresh water
Rain Water
Rain is the prime source of all water. A part of the rainwater sinks into the ground to form ground water; part of it evaporates back into atmosphere, and some runs off to form streams and rivers which flow ultimately into the sea. Some of the water in the soil is taken up by the plants and is evaporated in turn by the leaves. These events are spoken of as "water cycle". Rain water is the purest form of water.
Surface Water
Surface water is water in a river, lake or fresh water wetland. Surface water is naturally replenished by precipitation and naturally lost through discharge to the oceans, evaporation, evapotranspiration and sub-surface seepage.
Although the only natural input to any surface water system is precipitation within its watershed, the total quantity of water in that system at any given time is also dependent on many other factors. These factors include storage capacity in lakes, wetlands and artificial reservoirs, the permeability of the soil beneath these storage bodies, the runoff characteristics of the land in the watershed, the timing of the precipitation and local evaporation rates. All of these factors also affect the proportions of water loss.
Under River Flow
Throughout the course of a river, the total volume of water transported downstream will often be a combination of the visible free water flow together with a substantial contribution flowing through sub-surface rocks and
The sources of water that are useful to human life are called water resources. Uses of water include agricultural, industrial, household and recreational activities. The majority of human uses require fresh water.
97 percent of the water on the Earth is salt water and only 3 percent is fresh water; slightly over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. The remaining unfrozen fresh water is found mainly as groundwater, with only a small fraction present above ground or in the air.
Sources of fresh water
Rain Water
Rain is the prime source of all water. A part of the rainwater sinks into the ground to form ground water; part of it evaporates back into atmosphere, and some runs off to form streams and rivers which flow ultimately into the sea. Some of the water in the soil is taken up by the plants and is evaporated in turn by the leaves. These events are spoken of as "water cycle". Rain water is the purest form of water.
Surface Water
Surface water is water in a river, lake or fresh water wetland. Surface water is naturally replenished by precipitation and naturally lost through discharge to the oceans, evaporation, evapotranspiration and sub-surface seepage.
Although the only natural input to any surface water system is precipitation within its watershed, the total quantity of water in that system at any given time is also dependent on many other factors. These factors include storage capacity in lakes, wetlands and artificial reservoirs, the permeability of the soil beneath these storage bodies, the runoff characteristics of the land in the watershed, the timing of the precipitation and local evaporation rates. All of these factors also affect the proportions of water loss.
Under River Flow
Throughout the course of a river, the total volume of water transported downstream will often be a combination of the visible free water flow together with a substantial contribution flowing through sub-surface rocks and