Water, Another Important Abiotic Factor (just like soil)

Water, Another Important

Abiotic Factor(just like soil)

Remember the Water Cycle?

1. Groundwater – water located beneath the ground surface in between soil spaces.

2. Surface water – water collecting on the ground or in a stream, river, lake, sea or ocean.

Two Types of Liquid Water:(based on its location)

Surface water

1. It rains or precipitation happens,2. If the ground is dry, it absorbs water like

a sponge,3. This becomes groundwater,4. When the ground can no longer hold

anymore water,5. The rain starts to runoff the surface of

the land,6. This runoff goes into streams, rivers, &

lakes and becomes surface water.

How Do You Get the Two Types?

Let’s Take a Look at Surface Water First

Remember, water that is not absorbed by the ground runs-off and

becomes surface water

Runoff - water that flows over the land surface. It becomes surface water like lakes, streams, rivers, and eventually the oceans.

Definition:

What Makes a River Flow?

…gravity, water from snow or rain falls on higher ground and flows to a lower point, typically the ocean.

Ocean

From the Reading Guide:

Parts of a River – 3 sectionsLooking from above

Tributariestrunk

Distributaries

Water Flow

High GroundMountainsUpstream

Low GroundThe Ocean

Downstream

Drainage basin - the land areas that gathers precipitation water and directs it to a particular stream.

Definition:

Drainage Basin – sometimes used in a larger sense to include all the land that drains into a river system.

Divide - the ridge of land that separates two adjacent drainage basins.

Definition:

Pacific Ocean

Atlan

tic Ocean

Floodplain - flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional or periodic flooding

Definition:

floodplain -

Definition:

From the Reading Guide:

Parts of a River – 3 sectionsLooking from above

Tributariestrunk

Distributaries

Meander

meander – a winding, turning bend in a river

Definition:

Ox bow lake - a type of lake which is formed when a wide meander from a stream or a river is cut off to form a lake.

Definition:

Delta - a landform where the mouth of a river flows into an ocean, sea, desert, estuary or lake.

Definition:

The Nile River Delta

watershed - the region of land whose water drains into a specified body of water

Definition:

South Carolina Rivers Map

sediments- loose pieces of sand, silt and clay that come from the process of weathering and erosion that settle at the bottom of rivers and lakes

Definition:

dams- man made structure created for flood control that can create lakes for recreation and water storage. Some dams can create hydroelectricity.

Definition:

Now, Let’s Look at Groundwater

• Remember Permeability?

• The ground is permeable, it has spaces between the soil particles that permit water or air to pass through.

• When it rains water seeps into the ground…it continues downward until it hits something that stops it.

Why Does the Ground Absorb Water?

There are Two Zones Under the Ground---1. Zone of Aeration – the area

in the soil where most of the spaces are filled with air.

2. Zone of saturation – the area in the soil where most of the spaces are filled with water…it is saturated.

The Border Between the Two has a Name---

Water Table - upper level of an underground surface in which the soil or rocks are permanently saturated with water.

The top of the Zone of Saturation The bottom of the Zone of Aeration.

Zon

e

of

A

era

tion

Zone of Saturation

Air

water

Notice the Water Table Underground is at Lake Level on the Surface…

…follow a lake’s level into the side of the land, and you now know the level of the water table.

Aquifer - underground layer of water, “pool of water”