Why is soil important in the water cycle?
Water infiltration through soil traps pollutants and prevents them from leaching into the groundwater. Moreover, the soil captures and stores water, making it available for absorption by crops, and thus minimizing surface evaporation and maximizing water use efficiency and productivity.
What is needed under water cycle?
The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in the oceans. Some of it evaporates as vapor into the air. Rising air currents take the vapor up into the atmosphere, along with water from evapotranspiration, which is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil.
How do soils affect hydrology?
The hydric soils in turn alter the movement of water and solutes through the wetland system. The soil is where many of the hydrologic and bio- geochemical processes that influence wetland function and ecology occur. Hydrologic concepts will be foreshadowed throughout the soils section.
What is the process of opening the soil so it can absorb rain water?
Transpiration in plants is a similar process, in which water is absorbed from the soil by plant roots and transported up the stem to the leaves, from where it is released (transpired) as water vapour into the atmosphere.
Why is the water cycle important to the environment?
Importance of Water Cycle for Earth and Environment The importance of the water cycle or hydrologic cycle cannot be denied because it enables water to reach animals, plants as well as humans. Along with catering to the water needs, it also moves other things with its flow e.g., pathogens, nutrients, and sediment to and from the aquatic ecosystems.
How does misuse of soil affect the water cycle?
Most of the precipitation soaks into the soil; the part that doesn’t run to the sea by way of streams and rivers. Ground water gets there more slowly. Misuse and poor management of the soil will decrease the amount of water that soaks into the soil and increase the amount that runs off over the surface.
How does the water cycle support plant and animal life?
The water that soaks into the soil sustains plant and animal life in the soil. Some seeps to underground reservoirs. Almost all of this water eventually enters the cycle once more. People can alter the water cycle but little, so their primary supply of water is firmly fixed.
Why is it important to know about soil moisture?
Soil moisture information is valuable to a wide range of government agencies and private companies concerned with weather and climate, runoff potential and flood control, soil erosion and slope failure, reservoir management, geotechnical engineering, and water quality.