1. WATERHOLIC - a drop of water, a drop of hope 2013 2015 COLEGIUL TEHNIC „MIRON COSTIN” ROMAN, ROMÂNIA 23 – 27.02.2015 Palermo, ITALIA

2. Water cycle The cycle of processes by which water circulates between the earth’s oceans, atmosphere and land, involving precipitation as rain and snow, drainage in streams and rivers, and return to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration.

4. State of matter In physics, a state of matter is one of the distinct forms that takes on. Four states of matter are observable in everyday life: solid, liquid, gas and plasma.

6. Groundwater Water held underground in the soil or in pores and crevices in rock.

8. Water Stress Level The indicators of water stress rely on the ratio of water withdrawal to hydrological availability, along with a variation factor to account for variability of precipitation.

10. Water resources management The activity of planning, developing, distributing and managing the optimum use of water resources. It is a sub-set of water cycle management planning has regard to all the competing demands for water and seeks to allocate water on an equitable basis to satisfy all uses and demands.

12. Water conservation Water conservation encompasses the policies, strategies and activities to manage fresh water as a sustainable resource, to protect the water environment, and to meet current and future human demand.

14. Ecohydrology An interdisciplinary field studying the interactions between water and ecosystems.

16. Wastewater Any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence.

18. Water treatment The industrial-scale processes that makes water more acceptable for an end- use, which may be drinking, industry or medicine.

20. Water pollution The contamination of water bodies(e.g. lakes, rivers,oceans,aquifers and groundwater).Water pollution occurs when pollutants are directly discharged into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds.

22. Marine pollution Marine pollution occurs when harmful or potentially harmful, effects result from the entry into the ocean of chemicals, particles, industrial, agricultural and residential waste, noise or the spread of invasive organisms.

24. Aquatic ecosystem An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem in a body of water. Communities of organisms that are dependent on each other and on their environment live in aquatic ecosystems. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems.

26. Marine ecosystem Marine ecosystems are among the largest of Earth’s aquatic ecosystems. They include oceans, salt marsh and intertidal ecology, estuaries and lagoons, mangroves and coral reefs, the deep sea and the sea floor.

28. Freshwater ecosystems Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth’s aquatic ecosystems. They include lakes and ponds, rivers, streams, springs, and wetlands. They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems, which have a larger salt content. Freshwater habitats can be classified by different factors, including temperature, light penetration, and vegetation.

30. Water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, biological and radiological characteristic of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one more biotic species and or to any human need or purpose. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standers against which compliance can be assessed. The most common standards use to assess water quality relate the health of ecosystems, safety of human contact and drinking water.

32. Water scarcity Water scarcity is the lack of sufficient available water resources to meet the demands of water usage within a region. It already affects every continent and around 2.8 billion people around the world at least one month out of every year.

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