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The Hydrologic Cycle The hydrologic cycle, also known as the water cycle, is the process of water movement

on earth in an endless mode. It describes the circulation of water throughout the earth-atmosphere system with different processes that water undergoes when it moves around the world (Alberta Government, n. d.). Oceans, rivers, all of the waterbody on earth are circulates in a never-ending cycle. This circulation and movement of water conserve the total amount of earths water as water circulates from land to sky and back again to the land (Foundation for Water Research, 2010). Therefore the global hydrologic cycle has a fundamental characteristic, that is it has no beginning and it has no end. It can be described with six processes, namely, evaporation, condensation, precipitation, interception, inflitration, percolation and transpiration. An illustration of the hydrologic cycle is shown in figure 1. Hydrologic cycle is driven by the solar system. This is where evaporation starts. The heat from solar system transforms liquid into gaseous state (vapour) below boiling point after water absorbs the heat. The energy from solar system that change the phase of water from liquid to vapour state is named as latent heat. Latent heat is kind of energy which promotes evaporation process (Ritter, 2009). As water is heated, surface molecules become sufficiently energized to break free from the attractive force formed among molecules thus lifted into atmosphere, existed as water vapour in the atmosphere. Evaporation can occur on raindrops, seas and lakes, vegetation, soil, rocks and snow. There are also other factors which affect the evaporation rate, that is, temperature or heat, humidity, wind speed, water quality, vapour pressure at water surface and above. (Northwest River Forecast Centre, n. d.). Condensation in hydrologic cycle is when the physical state of water vapour changes from vapour to liquid form. Condensation is brought about by cooling of the air or by increasing the amount of vapour in the air to its saturation point. Water vapour which evaporated into the air circulates within the atmosphere causes the vapour molecules rises and cools. At this stage, water vapour condenses back to liquid form. Initially these liquid water droplets are much smaller than raindrops and are not heavy enough to fall as precipitation. Therefore, these tiny water droplets form clouds when mix with dust, pollen or pollutants. During the driving of wind, the droplets continue to circulate within the clouds, collide and form larger clouds (Egger, 2003).

Following that, precipitation occurs. Precipitation occurs when any forms of water particles or droplets fall from atmosphere and reach the ground. The droplet is exposed to gravity and friction force when it becomes larger and heavier. At this stage, it is heavy enough to fall on earth as rain, hail, snow or sleet (precipitated water). The precipitated water is then fall into a waterbody or fall onto land. After that, the precipitated water can adhere to objects on the earth surface or flow through the land into stream channels, or penetrate into the soil, or intercepted by plants. It is also returned to the atmosphere by evaporation if the size of droplets is very small and infrequent. The portion of precipitated water that appears in surface streams is called surface runoff. Surface runoff travels over the ground surface and through surface channels to back to ocean again (Northwest River Forecast Centre, n. d.). Upon reaching the ground, precipitated water travels through several ways. Before the precipitated water fall and reach the ground, it may intercept by vegetation and evaporated before reaching ground. This process is known as interception. Rain water intercept by vegetation is retained as surface storage and evaporate back to atmosphere. Rain water could also drip off from plant or vegetation into ground. Interception process is depending on composition of vegetation, water density and storm characteristics (Subramanya, 2008). Apart from that, some precipitated water infiltrates into the soil. This is where the infiltration process starts to take place. Infiltration is the physical process involving the vertical movement of water through the boundary area between the atmosphere and the soil layer (Northwest River Forecast Centre, n. d.). After the precipitated water soaked into soil, some of this water remains in the shallow soil layer and returns to the surface at springs or in low spots downhill as surface run off while some of the water infiltrates deeper, remains in the underground as groundwater (Perlman, 2011). Percolation is another process of movement of water into ground that occurs after the precipitation process. Percolation is defined as some portion of precipitated water percolating down to the groundwater zone, which called groundwater. Percolation can be explained as the horizontal movement of groundwater through soil and rock. Groundwater percolates through soil by move over along fracture of rock, void, channel and lastly seeps out to stream channels (National Geoscience Database of IRAN, 2004).

Besides that, some precipited water also transpired back to atmosphere. The process of evaporation of water ito atmospehere from leaves and stems of plant is known as transpiration. Transpiration is one of the important process in hydrologic cycle. It is define as the plant absorb water from soil, and evaporate water into water vapour (The Evergreen Project, 1995). Transpiration is mainly govern by the humidity of atmosphere and moisture content of soil. Most of the plant involved in transpiration, only 1% of water is used as growth process or photosyntesis while the remaining of 99% is transpired back into atmosphere as water vapour. All of these water vapour which goes back to the atmosphere is then condensed and precipitated back to earth surface again. Consequently, beginning with a new hydrologic cycle. This is how the water goes round and round on earth forming a new cycle endlessly to conserve the amount of water on earth, to be reused over and over again. Hydrologic cycle is very important in variety of fields such as agriculture, foresty, geography, economics and sociology. Understanding and studies of hydrologic cycle is useful for engineering application, which can be in design and operation of water suppy, irigation, flood control, navigation, coastal works, water power, salinity and recreational uses of water (Subramanya, 2008).

Refercences: Alberta Government (n. d.). Water quality and hydrology. Retrieved February 24, 2011, from

http://www3.gov.ab.ca/env/water/gwsw/quantity/learn/what/hc_hydrocycle/hc1_ what_is.html Egger, A. E. (2003). The Hydrologic Cycle: Water's journey through

time, Visionlearning Vol. EAS-2 (2), 2003. Retrieved February 24, 2011, from http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=99 Foundation for Water Research (2010). Hydrological cycle: What is the hydrological cycle. Retrieved February 24, 2011, from

http://www.euwfd.com/html/hydrological_cycle.html National Geoscience Database of IRAN. (2004). Hydrologic cycle. Retrieved February 26, 2011, from

http://www.ngdir.ir/sitelinks/kids/html/water_en_co_hydrologic%20cycle.html.h tm National Weather Service. (2010, June 9). The hydrologic cycle. Retrieved February 28, 2011 from http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmos/hydro.htm

Northwest River Forecast Centre (n. d.). Hydrologic cycle: Description of hydrologic cycle. Retrieved 25 February, 2011, from

http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/info/water_cycle/hydrology.cgi Oram, B. (n. d.). Hydrologic cycle. Retrieved February 26, 2011 from http://www.water-research.net/Watershed/hydrologicalcycle.htm Perlman, H. (2011). Summary of the water cycle: Infiltration: The downward movement of water from the land surface into soil or porous rock. Retrieved 25 February, 2011, from http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesummary.html Ritter, M. E. (2006) The Physical Environment: an Introduction to Physical Geography. Retrieved February 26, 2011 from

http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/title_page.html

Subramanya. (2008). Engineering Hydrology (3nd ed.). Singapore: Tata McGraw-Hill. The Evergreen Project. (1995). The water cycle. Retrieved February 27, 2011 from http://www.mbgnet.net/fresh/cycle/concepts.htm

Appendix:

Figure 1: The Hydrologic Cycle. (Taken from http://www.solcomhouse.com/hydrologiccycle.htm)

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