Question

What are the four sources of Surface Water?

Answer 1

Hint: Surface water is any body of water above ground, including streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, reservoirs, and creeks. The ocean, despite being saltwater, is also considered surface water. Surface water participates in the hydrologic cycle or water cycle, which involves the movement of water to and from the Earth’s surface.

Complete step by step answer:
Four sources of surface water:
- River: A river is a ribbon-like body of water that flows downhill from the force of gravity. A river can be wide and deep, or shallow enough for a person to wade across. A flowing body of water that is smaller than a river is called a stream, creek, or brook. Some rivers flow year-round, while others flow only during certain seasons or when there has been a lot of rain. The largest rivers can be thousands of miles long.
- Lake: A lake is a body of water that is surrounded by land. There are millions of lakes in the world. They are found on every continent and in every kind of environment—in mountains and deserts, on plains, and near seashores. Lakes vary greatly in size. Some measure only a few square meters and are small enough to fit in your backyard. Such small lakes are often referred to as ponds. Other lakes are so big that they are called seas. The Caspian Sea, in Europe and Asia, is the world’s largest lake.
- Wetlands: Wetlands occur where water meets land. They include mangroves, peat lands and marshes, rivers and lakes, deltas, floodplains and flooded forests, rice-fields, and even coral reefs. Wetlands exist in every country and in every climatic zone, from the polar regions to the tropics, and from high altitudes to dry regions.
- Stream: A stream is a body of water that flows on Earth’s surface. The word stream is often used interchangeably with river, though rivers usually describe larger streams. Streams provide many benefits to humans. Besides providing drinking water and irrigation for crops, streams wash away waste and can provide electricity through hydropower.

Additional information:
The ocean is a continuous body of salt water that covers more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface.The ocean, despite being saltwater, is also considered surface water.

Note: The water cycle is the continuous circulation of water within the Earth's hydrosphere, and is driven by solar radiation. This includes the atmosphere, land, surface water and groundwater. As water moves through the cycle, it changes state between liquid, solid, and gas phases. Water moves from compartment to compartment, such as from river to ocean, by the physical processes of evaporation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and subsurface flow.