What is the Water Cycle?

So it’s raining. Have you or someone close to you ever thought about where all that water stored in clouds comes from?
If not, let me tell you about a very important cycle of our nature called the water cycle.

When the sun heats water in the oceans and rivers, the water turns into a gas called water vapor and rises. This method is called evaporation.

You can also see water vapor at your home. Just take some water from a container and place it on the stove. After a while, you can see clouds of gas rising. This gas is called water vapor. Therefore, this is the first step of the water cycle.

Step 1: Evaporation

• Water from oceans, lakes, and rivers turns into water vapor due to heat from the sun.

• Water vapor rises into the atmosphere.

Step 2: Condensation

When this water vapor rises, it turns into tiny droplets of water. This process is called condensation.
The water vapor then mixes with other elements, such as natural gases and tiny dust particles, to form clouds.

Home Experiment:
Hold a cold lid over the vessel you used to heat the water. After a while, tiny droplets of water appear — this is condensation.

Step 3: Precipitation

As time goes by, the cloud gets bigger. At a certain point, it cannot get any bigger and cannot hold more water particles, so it bursts open into rain, hail, or snow. This process is called precipitation.

Step 4: Collection

As it rains, water gets collected into rivers, lakes, oceans, and even under the soil.
The water cycle is a continuous process of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.

Additional Processes in the Water Cycle

Transpiration
Even plants sweat. This happens by transpiration (exhalation of water vapor through stomata).
It is why it rains more in hilly regions or forests because they contain many trees and plants.

Sublimation
Sometimes snow directly converts into vapor without turning into water. This process is called sublimation.
It happens often in cold countries.

Importance of the Water Cycle

• All the water in our environment is recycled water.

• The water you drink, the water you bathe with, and the water in rivers is not newly generated — it is recycled through the water cycle.

• Without the water cycle, the water on our planet would decrease over time.

• Water is life — without it, all living things would die.