Water Cycle

To prevent all the water on earth from being used up and never replenished, water moves through a hydrologic cycle called the Water Cycle. It's nature's system for moving water through our environment so we can re-use it again and again and again.

The Water Cycle begins as the sun heats land and water surfaces, causing the water from the earth's oceans, lakes, rivers, streams and reservoirs to evaporate. The evaporated moisture is carried into the atmosphere and eventually falls back to earth as precipitation from clouds. This precipitation can be in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow. The water runs into our rivers, lakes and oceans and is absorbed by the soil. As it seeps into underground formations called aquifers, it replenishes our groundwater supply.

The Water Cycle never ends. The water supply we have today is the same that existed when the earth was formed millions of years ago.