Koeppen based his scheme of Climatic classification on monthly values of temperature and
precipitation.
He identified five major climatic types, namely:
(i) Tropical climates, where mean monthly temperature throughout the year is over 18C.
(ii) Dry climates, where precipitation is very low in comparison to temperature, and hence, dry. If
dryness is less, it is semiarid (S); if it is more, the climate is arid(W).
(iii) Warm temperate climates, where mean temperature of the coldest month is between 18C
and minus 3C.
(iv) Cool temperate climates, where mean temperature of the warmest month is over 10C, and
mean temperature of the coldest month is under minus 3C.
(v) Ice climates, where mean temperature of the warmest month is under 10C.
What is natures most abundant greenhouse gas? The answer is water vapor! Air typically
contains 500 times more water vapor than CO2. Depending upon local humidity, water
vapor can form about two percent of the atmosphere, serving as the Earths dominant
greenhouse gas. Most scientists estimate that water vapor causes between 75 percent and
90 percent of Earths greenhouse effect. If we use the conservative number, about 75
percent of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and of the remaining
portion, about 19 percent is due to carbon dioxide, with 6 percent due to methane and other
gases. But as indicated by the Carbon Cycle Model of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), only about 3 percent of the CO2 placed into the atmosphere each
year is from human emissions. So, of the last 25 percent of the greenhouse effect that is
due to carbon dioxide and methane, only about 3 percent of this is due to man-made
sources
Evapotranspiration (ET) is the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's land
and ocean surface to the atmosphere. Evaporation accounts for the movement of water to the
air from sources such as the soil, canopy interception, and waterbodies. Transpiration accounts
for the movement of water within a plant and the subsequent loss of water as vapor
through stomatain its leaves. Evapotranspiration is an important part of the water cycle. An
element (such as a tree) that contributes to evapotranspiration can be called
an evapotranspirator.
[1]
Potential evapotranspiration (PET) is a representation of the environmental demand for
evapotranspiration and represents the evapotranspiration rate of a short green crop, completely
shading the ground, of uniform height and with adequate water status in the soil profile. It is a
reflection of the energy available to evaporate water, and of the wind available to transport the
water vapour from the ground up into the lower atmosphere. Actual evapotranspiration is said to
equal potential evapotranspiration when there is ample water.
Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly
all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-
lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock. Tropical weathering (laterization) is a
prolonged process of chemical weathering which produces a wide variety in the thickness,
grade, chemistry and ore mineralogy of the resulting soils. The majority of the land area
containing laterites is between the tropics of Cancer andCapricorn.
Laterites are formed from the leaching of parent sedimentary
rocks (sandstones, clays, limestones);metamorphic
rocks (schists, gneisses, migmatites); igneous rocks (granites, basalts, gabbros,peridotites); and
mineralized proto-ores;
[3]:5
which leaves the more insoluble ions, predominantly iron and
aluminium. The mechanism of leaching involves acid dissolving the host mineral lattice, followed
by hydrolysis and precipitation of insoluble oxides and sulfates of iron, aluminium and silica
under the high temperature conditions
[8]
of a humid sub-tropical monsoon climate.
[9]
An essential
feature for the formation of laterite is the repetition of wet and dry seasons.
[10]
Rocks are
leached by percolating rain water during the wet season; the resulting solution containing the
leached ions is brought to the surface by capillary action during the dry season.
[10]
These ions
form soluble salt compounds which dry on the surface; these salts are washed away during the
next wet season.
[10]
Laterite formation is favoured in low topographical reliefs of gentle crests
and plateaus which prevents erosion of the surface cover.
[5]:4
The reaction zone where rocks are
in contact with water from the lowest to highest water table levels is progressively depleted
of the easily leached ions of sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium.
[10]
A solution of
these ions can have the correct pH to preferentially dissolve silicon oxide rather than
thealuminium oxides and iron oxides.
During the wet season, mineral salts in the to layer of the soil dissolve in rain water.
The dissolved minerals percolate i.e. seep downwards from the top soil to the sub soil.
The dissolved minerals are deposited further downwards to the lower layer.
Insoluble minerals such as iron and aluminium accumulate at the to layers to form a crust of
laterite.
During the dry season, some of the soluble minerals are moved from the bottom layers to the
top layer of the soil by capillary action.
Podzolization encompasses the downward migration of Al and Fe, together with
organic matter, from the surface areas and their accumulation in the profile's deep
areas.
This process is characterised by a strong acidity that causes the slow development of
organic matter (which releases abundant organic compounds with an acidic nature)
and an extreme alteration of the mineral phase (releasing abundant elements that are
lixiviated by the drainage waters, while the medium is enriched with insoluble
elements, such as Fe and Al, which are migrated downward by the organic
compounds towards deeper horizons). In short, an eluvial horizon is formed on the
surface with intense substance losses.
The organometallic complexes migrate to the subsurface horizons and they
accumulate originating the Bh and Bs horizon of the podzols, in short leaving a very
differentiated profile with a very complete and very noticeable horizon consequence:
O/A/E/Bh/Bs.
The evidence that the podzolization process has developed in a soil is reflected in the
profile's spectacular micromorphology, with abundant coverings of organic matter on
the sand grains in horizon Bh.
In soil science, podzols (known as Spodosols in China and the United States of
America,Espodossolos in Brazil, and Podosols in Australia)
[citation needed]
are the
typical soils ofconiferous, or boreal forests. They are also the typical soils of eucalypt forests
and heathlands in southern Australia, while in Western Europe podzols develop on heathland,
which is often a construct of human interference through grazing and burning. Many podzols in
this region may have developed over the past 3000 years in response to vegetation and climatic
changes.
[citation needed]
In some British moorlands with podzolic soils there are brown
earthspreserved under Bronze Age barrows (Dimbleby, 1962). Podzol is Russian for "under
ash" (/pod=under, /zola=ash) and likely refers to the common experience of Russian
peasants of plowing up an apparent under-layer of ash (leached or E horizon) during first
plowing of a virgin soil of this type.
Water stress occurs when the demand for water exceeds the available amount during a certain
period or when poor quality restricts its use. Water stress causes deterioration of fresh water
resources in terms of quantity (aquifer over-exploitation, dry rivers, etc.) and quality (eutrophication,
organic matter pollution, saline intrusion, etc.). Source:
[Link]
Watersheds
Watershed refers to the land over and through which water flows to reach a common water body. It has
two components - surface drainage and groundwater drainage. An underground drainage area is
sometimes called a groundwatershed. Just as surface water flows over the surface of the land in
response to gravity, groundwater flows through permeable soils and fractures in bedrock in response to
gravity. Groundwater, however, flows much more slowly. A surface watershed divide is the set of points
separating one watershed from another. Surface watershed divides are usually mountains and high
points of land. Groundwatershed divides separate groundwatersheds from each other. Surface
watershed divides may be in different places than groundwatershed divides.
In every watershed, small streams flow into larger streams, which flow into rivers, lakes, and bays. The
smallest streams at the outer limits of a watershed are called headwaters. In New England, headwaters are
often located in the mountains. These headwater streams have no tributaries and are called first order
streams. All other streams have tributaries. Second order streams form when first order streams meet.
Third order streams form when second order streams meet, and so on. In regions like New England that
have varied terrain we often describe water as flowing from the mountains to the sea or to a lake. The
water follows gravity and the contours of the landscape. A watershed is identified by the name of the
water body that serves as the collecting basin for that drainage are. All land is a part of some watershed!
Not only do streams and rivers flow to a collecting basin, but so too do the impacts that humans have upon
those waterbodies. Human activities that impact the quality of the river water flowing into a basin also
impact the basin itself.
How a Watershed Works
Understanding the hydrologic (water) cycle is critical to understanding the concept of the watershed.
Without the water cycle, watersheds would cease to exisit. It is the water cycle at work that gives us,
here in New England, the seemingly endless supply of water we enjoy. Although three-quarters of the
Earth is covered by water, the percentage of freshwater that is available for everyday human use is very
small. Clean freshwater is even more scarce. While both salt water and freshwater are essential parts of
the water cycle, the freshwater that most of us use in our daily lives makes up less than 1% of all the
water on the planet. Because the "same" water is recycled year after year, contamination or overuse of
this valuable resource can create both short- and long-term problems. Protection and conservation, on
the other hand, may help maintain a supply suitable for plants, wildlife, and human uses. Understanding
how water evaporates, collects, flows and circulates is the first step in this protection effort.
1. A ridge of high land dividing two areas that are drained by different river systems. Also called water par
ting.
2. The region draining into a river, river system, or other body of water.
3. A critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point: "a watershed in modern Am
erican history, a time that ... foreverchanged American social attitudes" (Robert Reinhold).
drainage divide, water divide, divide, ridgeline,
[1]
watershed, water parting, or
(in Canada) height of land
[citation needed]
, is the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins.
In hilly country, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a single range
of hills or mountains, known as a dividing range. In flat countryespecially where the ground
is marshythe divide may be harder to discern.
A valley floor divide is a low drainage divide that runs across a valley, sometimes created by
deposition or stream capture.
Since ridgelines are easy to see and agree about, drainage divides are ofttimes natural
borders defining political boundaries, as with 18th century North America's Royal Proclamation of
1763 that preceded the American Revolution.
Stream capture, river capture, or stream piracy is a geomorphological phenomenon occurring
when a stream or river drainage system or watershedis diverted from its own bed, and flows instead
down the bed of a neighbouring stream. This can happen for several reasons, including:
Tectonic earth movements, where the slope of the land changes, and the stream is tipped out of
its former course
Natural damming, such as by a landslide or ice sheet
Erosion, either
Headward erosion of one stream valley upwards into another, or
Lateral erosion of a meander through the higher ground dividing the adjacent streams.
Within an area of karst topography, where streams may sink, or flow underground (a sinking
or losing stream) and then reappear in a nearby stream valley
Headward erosion is erosion at the origin of a stream channel, which causes the origin to
move back away from the direction of the stream flow, and so causes the stream channel to
lengthen.
[1]
It can also refer to widening of a canyon by erosion along its very top edge, when
sheets of water first enter the canyon from a more roughly planar surface above it, such as
at Canyonlands National Park in Utah. (See image at right.) When sheets of water on a
roughly planar surface first enter a depression in it, this erodes the top edge of the
depression. This either causes the stream to grow longer at the very top of the stream, which
moves its origin back, or causes the canyon formed by the stream to grow wider, by erosion
along the length of its top side edge as sheets of water flow over the edge. Widening of the
canyon by erosion inside the canyon, below the canyon side top edge, or origin or the
stream, such as erosion caused by the streamflow inside it, is not called headwall erosion.
Headward erosion is a fluvial process of erosion that lengthens a stream, a valley or
a gully at its head and also enlarges its drainage basin. The stream erodes away at the rock
and soil at its headwaters in the opposite direction that it flows. Once a stream has begun to
cut back, the erosion is sped up by the steep gradient the water is flowing down. As water
erodes a path from its headwaters to its mouth at a standing body of water, it tries to cut an
ever-shallower path. This leads to increased erosion at the steepest parts, which is
headward erosion. If headward erosion continues long enough, it can cause a stream to
break through into a neighboring watershed and capture drainage that previously flowed to
another stream.
For example, headward erosion by the Shenandoah River in the U.S. state of Virginia,
a tributary of the Potomac River, permitted the Shenandoah to capture successively the
original upstream segments of Beaverdam Creek, Gap Run and Goose Creek, three smaller
tributaries of the Potomac. As each capture added to the Shenandoah's discharge, it
accelerated the process of headward erosion until the Shenandoah captured all drainage to
the Potomac west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
[Link]
