Where does Water come from?

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Most of the water on earth is salt water in the seas and oceans, this makes up about 97%. 2% is in the form of ice found around the polar icecaps, mainly in the Antartic. So only 1% of the world’s water is freshwater, found in our rivers and lakes. When rain falls, the water can run straight into the rivers and lakes, but it may also seep down into the ground and become groundwater. Groundwater may take thousands of years to make its way back to the sea. Sometimes groundwater comes out of the ground, maybe at the side of a hill, as a spring. Most streams start from a spring in this way.

As the rivers, streams and springs make their way to the sea, some of the water evaporates. Water evaporates from the sea every day. This happens because the sun heats up the water and turns it into water vapour. Because warm air rises, the warm air carries the water vapour up into the sky. As the water vapour gets higher up in the sky, it gets colder, then tiny invisible droplets condense and form clouds. Clouds are made up of millions of tiny water droplets. The droplets fall and bump into smaller ones to make bigger drops. When the droplets are heavy enough, they fall back down to the ground as rain, hail or snow. The water then soaks into the ground or runs into the rivers and lakes. This is what we call the Hydrological Cycle.