The Various Inputs in Hydrological Cycle

THE VARIOUS INPUTS IN HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE
A number of cycles are operating in nature, such as the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle,
and several biogeochemical cycles. The Hydrologic Cycle, also known as the water cycle, is one
such cycle which forms the fundamental concept in hydrology. Hydrologic cycle was defined by
the National Research Council (NRC, 1982) the as “the pathway of water as it moves in its
various phases to the atmosphere, to the earth, over and through the land, to the ocean and back
to the atmosphere”. This cycle has no beginning or end and water is present in all the three states
(solid, liquid, and gas). A pictorial view of the hydrological cycle. The science of hydrology primarily
deals with the land portion of the hydrologic cycle; interactions with the oceans and atmosphere are
also studied. NRC (1991) called the hydrologic cycle as the integrating process for the fluxes of
water, energy, and the chemical elements.
The hydrologic cycle can be visualized as a series of storages and a set of activities that
move water among these storages. Among these, oceans are the largest reservoirs, holding about
97% of the earth’s water. Of the remaining 3% freshwater, about 78% is stored in ice in
Antarctica and Greenland. About 21% of freshwater on the earth is groundwater, stored in
sediments and rocks below the surface of the earth. Rivers, streams, and lakes together contain
less than 1% of the freshwater on the earth and less than 0.1% of all the water on the earth.
The water cycle has no starting point. But, we'll begin in the oceans, since that is where most of
Earth's water exists. The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in the oceans. Some of it
evaporates as vapour into the air. Ice and snow can sublimate directly into water vapour. Rising air
currents take the vapour up into the atmosphere, along with water from evapotranspiration, which
is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil. The vapour rises into the air where
cooler temperatures cause it to condense into clouds.
Air currents move clouds around the globe, cloud particles collide, grow, and fall out of the sky as
precipitation. Some precipitation falls as snow and can accumulate as ice caps and glaciers, which
can store frozen water for thousands of years. Snow packs in warmer climates often thaw and melt
when spring arrives, and the melted water flows overland as snowmelt.
Most precipitation falls back into the oceans or onto land, where, due to gravity, the precipitation
flows over the ground as surface runoff. A portion of runoff enters rivers in valleys in the landscape,
with stream flow moving water towards the oceans. Runoff, and groundwater seepage, accumulate
and are stored as freshwater in lakes. Not all runoff flows into rivers, though. Much of it soaks into
the ground as infiltration. Some water infiltrates deep into the ground and replenishes aquifers
(saturated subsurface rock), which store huge amounts of freshwater for long periods of time.
Some infiltration stays close to the land surface and can seep back into surface-water bodies (and
the ocean) as groundwater discharge, and some groundwater finds openings in the land surface and
emerges as freshwater springs. Over time, though, all of this water keeps moving, some to re-enter
the ocean, where the water cycle "ends"
However, water moves readily among its various compartments through the processes of
evaporation, precipitation, and surface and subsurface flows. Each of these compartments receives
inputs of water and has corresponding outputs, representing a flow-through system. If there are
imbalances between inputs and outputs, there can be significant changes in the quantities stored
locally or even globally.
Inputs - precipitation including rain and snow, and solar energy for evaporation.
The clouds floating overhead contain water vapor and cloud droplets, which are small drops of
condensed water. These droplets are way too small to fall as precipitation, but they are large enough
to form visible clouds. Water is continually evaporating and condensing in the sky.). Most of the
condensed water in clouds does not fall as precipitation because their fall speed is not large enough
to overcome updrafts which support the clouds.
For precipitation to happen, first tiny water droplets must condense on even tinier dust, salt, or
smoke particles, which act as a nucleus. Water droplets may grow as a result of additional
condensation of water vapor when the particles collide. If enough collisions occur to produce a
droplet with a fall velocity which exceeds the cloud updraft speed, then it will fall out of the cloud as
precipitation. This is not a trivial task since millions of cloud droplets are required to produce a single
raindrop. A more efficient mechanism (known as the Bergeron-Findeisen process) for producing a
precipitation-sized drop is through a process which leads to the rapid growth of ice crystals at the
expense of the water vapor present in a cloud. These crystals may fall as snow, or melt and fall as
rain.
The water cycle is driven primarily by the energy from the sun. This solar energy drives the cycle by
evaporating water from the oceans, lakes, rivers, and even the soil. Other water moves from plants
to the atmosphere through the process of transpiration. As liquid water evaporates or transpires, it
forms water vapour and clouds, where water droplets eventually gain enough mass to fall back to
Earth as precipitation. The precipitation then becomes run-off or ground water, and works its way—
over various timescales—back into the surface reservoirs.

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THE VARIOUS INPUTS IN HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE

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