Hydrology, particularly water flow, can affect the local environment due to changes in water quality and quantity. These changes can be man-made (e.g. a dam release) or weather-related (flooding), or due to a combination of both factors (rainfall runoff caused by poor agricultural practices).

What is Hydrology? Water is an essential resource that is required by all life on Earth. Studying the movement, availability, and quality of water are the jobs of a hydrologist. More specifically hydrologists study the chemical properties, biological interactions, and the physical processes that govern the water cycle.

The main applications of engineering hydrology are: Hydrology provides guidance for undergoing proper planning and management of water resources. Calculates rainfall, surface runoff, and precipitation. It estimates the water resource potential of the river basins. Enables real-time flood forecasting and flood warning.

In engineering, a hydrological assessment is carried out to quantify the flow or volume of water in a river or stream, over land, in soils, in a pond or in a reservoir. Hydrological assessment is therefore used to help reassure or alert developers, planners and land managers to potential issues for concern.

The hydrologic cycle is important because it is how water reaches plants, animals and us! Besides providing people, animals and plants with water, it also moves things like nutrients, pathogens and sediment in and out of aquatic ecosystems.

After enough water has grouped together it will fall back down as precipitation. Depending on what region it is it might fall as; hail, sleet, snow or rain. The amount of rainfall a region gets determines what plants can grow there and the animal life that lives there as well.

The advantages from the water cycle are that the earth’s population doesn’t have to produce any more water than what we already have because we use the same water. Provides water for our population, animals and plants. Provides fish to eat. Evaporation and infiltration help to remove impurities from water.

There are four main stages in the water cycle. They are evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection. Let’s look at each of these stages. Evaporation: This is when warmth from the sun causes water from oceans, lakes, streams, ice and soils to rise into the air and turn into water vapour (gas).

THE WATER CYCLE: A GUIDE FOR STUDENTS

• Step 1: Evaporation. The water cycle begins with evaporation.
• Step 2: Condensation. As water vaporizes into water vapor, it rises up in the atmosphere.
• Step 3: Sublimation.
• Step 4: Precipitation.
• Step 5: Transpiration.
• Step 6: Runoff.
• Step 7: Infiltration.

Water cycle is the cyclic movement of water from the atmosphere to the earth and back to the atmosphere through various processes. This constant, never ending circulation of water in nature is known as the water cycle. Precipitation: Water stored in clouds reaches the ground in the form of rain, hail or snow.

It can be studied by starting at any of the following processes: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, interception, infiltration, percolation, transpiration, runoff, and storage. Evaporation occurs when the physical state of water is changed from a liquid state to a gaseous state.

Of the many processes involved in the water cycle, the most important are evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and runoff.

The water cycle describes the existence and movement of water on, in, and above the Earth. Earth’s water is always in movement and is always changing states, from liquid to vapor to ice and back again.

Condensation is the process where water vapor becomes liquid. It is the reverse of evaporation, where liquid water becomes a vapor. Condensation happens one of two ways: Either the air is cooled to its dew point or it becomes so saturated with water vapor that it cannot hold any more water.

After condensation the water vapour or the moisture in the atmosphere takes one of the following forms — dew, frost, fog and clouds.

Common examples of condensation are: dew forming on grass in the early morning, eye glasses fogging up when you enter a warm building on a cold winter day, or water drops forming on a glass holding a cold drink on a hot summer day. Condensation occurs when water droplets form due to cooling air.