In our planet’s constantly moving water cycle, our oceans, lakes, puddles, and other collections of water evaporate. Water also transpires from plants. That vapor travels upwards into the atmosphere and can form clouds.
When clouds rain or snow, the precipitation falls back down to Earth… but does it all reach the ground? Does even 50% of the rain that falls reach the ground?
Where does rain go when it falls? MinuteEarth explains.
Related reading: Impervious Surfaces and Flooding and How Impervious Surface Impacts Stream Health.
Plus: There are around 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons (326 million trillion gallons or about 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters) of water on Earth. It covers 71% of the planet’s surface, yet only 3% of that is fresh water. Learn more about it in Crash Course Kids’ The Basics of Freshwater + Water, Water, Everywhere?
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