Water Cycle Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Water Cycle - Assignment Example The water then return to the ground inform of liquid (rain) or solid (snow, sleet) precipitation. The water that results from the rain flows back into rivers as surface runoff and groundwater. The stages involved in the water cycle include evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and runoff and groundwater flow. Evaporation occurs when the sun radiant energy heats up the water from the surface changing it into vapor. The vapor enters the atmosphere in a gaseous form. Transpiration is also part of the process whereby plants releases water through the leaves after intake in the roots. When both evaporation and transpiration occur, evapotranspiration emerges (Gardner, 2011). Evaporation acts as a purification process. The salty water from the sea or ocean evaporates into steam that is pure water. After the clouds form, the water drops from the atmosphere in form of rain, snow, hail or sleet in a process called precipitation. Clouds are an important part of the precipitation process because raindrops are the drops of the cloud that had condensed from vapor. As condensation adds more water to the cloud particles, gravity pulls them down which results into precipitation. When the rain hits the ground, much of the water infiltrates into the ground becoming groundwater. This will depend on the terrain where the rain drops. If the surface has more openings (cracks, joints), then more infiltration will occur. However, if the water does not infiltrate the soil, then it flows on the surface as runoff. The water flows into rivers that later empties back into the ocean and the whole water cycle begins again. UAE is a country with hyper-arid climate that is associated with high temperatures and infrequent irregular low rainfall. This means that it experiences high evaporation that lead to less rainfall and therefore low groundwater. The water cycle therefore does not favor much the country that meant that they had to