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

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 animation

South Carolina Rivers Map Edisto River Watershed area Other S.C. Watersheds

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.