Another Important Abiotic Factor Water, Another Important Abiotic Factor (just like soil)

Remember the Water Cycle?

Two Types of Liquid Water: (based on its location) Groundwater – water located beneath the ground surface in between soil spaces. Surface water – water collecting on the ground or in a stream, river, lake, sea or ocean.

Surface water

How Do You Get the Two Types? It rains or precipitation happens, If the ground is dry, it absorbs water like a sponge, This becomes groundwater, When the ground can no longer hold anymore water, The rain starts to runoff the surface of the land, This runoff goes into streams, rivers, & lakes and becomes surface water.

Let’s Take a Look at Surface Water First

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

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

What Makes a River Flow? Ocean …gravity, water from snow or rain falls on higher ground and flows to a lower point, typically the ocean.

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries High Ground Mountains Upstream Low Ground The Ocean Downstream Water Flow

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Drainage Basin

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

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

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Divide

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

Pacific Ocean Atlantic Ocean

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Floodplain

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

Definition: floodplain -

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Meander

Definition: meander – a winding, turning bend in a river

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Oxbow lakes

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.

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Delta

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

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Watershed

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

South Carolina Rivers Map

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Alluvial Fan

Definition: Alluvial fan -a fan-shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows, and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries sediments

Definition: 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

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries Dams – man-made

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

Parts of a River – 3 sections From the Reading Guide: Parts of a River – 3 sections Looking from above trunk Tributaries Distributaries eutrophication

Definition: eutrophication- an increase in the nutrients and organisms in the life of a lake that eventually causes the lake to become dry land.

Now, Let’s Look at Groundwater

Why Does the Ground Absorb Water? 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.

There are Two Zones Under the Ground--- Zone of Aeration – the area in the soil where most of the spaces are filled with air. 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.

Zone of Aeration Air water Zone of Saturation

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.