May 6th, 2020

RIVERS - Lesson 2
Syllabus objective No. 20.
Instructions:
Refer to your syllabus Objective No. 20. You will realize that it is heavily content
based. The first part of the objective requires that you understand key terms and
concepts associated with the Hydrological Cycle. To address this, I am providing
you with some notes.
Read the following information carefully on the Hydrological Cycle. Take your
time. Try your best to make sense of it. The language is simple and hopefully clear
enough. You may have met this cycle before, however this level will be higher.
Of course, feel free to begin learning this content. If anyone has any questions
regarding this lesson’s information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
As I begin to pass on notes to you, please understand that these are my personal
notes that I would like you share with you, the students of my Form 4 Geography
class. I expect that from now onwards, you store all of these lessons and notes
safely. We will refer to these lessons and notes when school re-opens.
Exam questions will be based on this knowledge.

Objective: Discuss the operation of the Water Cycle

The hydrological (water) cycle is the process of circulation of water between the
earth (this includes land and sea) and the atmosphere. When rain falls on earth,
water is distributed in many ways:
 Some is immediately evaporated and returned to the atmosphere as water
vapour (which may later fall again as precipitation on earth).
 Some is intercepted (blocked) by vegetation canopies and stored on the
leaves of trees before being evaporated again.
 Some is infiltrated /absorbed into the ground and used by plants and only
gradually returned to the atmosphere by transpiration from leaves of the
plants.
 Some may flow laterally on top the soil as surface runoff and become
stored in lakes and ponds or any other form of surface storage.
 Some surface runoff may flow to join streams and rivers, which eventually
reach seas and oceans.
 A considerable proportion of the water percolates downwards (i.e. moves
vertically) into soil and rocks, filling up joints and pore spaces with water,
forming groundwater.
 Some groundwater may flow laterally underground as through-flow and
May eventually re-emerge onto the earth’s surface, via features such as
springs and geysers.

Important definitions:

 Precipitation –
A general term that refers to any form of water that arrives from the
atmosphere, onto the earth’s surface. It may take various forms of liquids
and solids such as rainfall, snow, hail, sleet etc.
NB. Rainfall is only one form pf precipitation.

 Infiltration –
This is the process of transfer of water from the surface to within the soil.

(i) Infiltration Rate – This is the speed at which water is absorbed into
the soil.
(ii) Infiltration capacity – This is the maximum amount of water the soil
is capable of holding, under certain existing environmental
conditions.
 Percolation – The vertical movement of water under gravity through the
deeper layers of soil and rock. It is estimated to occur about 100 times
slower than surface runoff.

 Interception – The blocking of the force of the raindrops by the trunk,

branches and leaves (canopy) of vegetation.