The Water Cycle

The water cycle is fairly straightforward.

Image from http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/physgeog/contents/8b.html

It concerns the movement of water around ecosystems and is, in essence:

Water is "stored" in the sea, lakes, rivers etc

It evaporates

And becomes clouds

Which then rain 

So water falls back into the sea, lakes, rivers etc

 

Additional events that you should also remember are:

Some water passes through animals  

this is deposited 

into the ground (and will eventually find its way into waterways) 

directly into waterways and so eventually runs back into the sea

Some water passes through plants

this is evaporated out of the plants (during transpiration)

and becomes part of the atmospheric water in clouds

Some water is stored as snow and ice

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