The Water Cycle and Drainage Basin Quiz

IGCSE Geography Edexcel: The Water Cycle & Drainage Basin System

• The hydrological cycle is a closed system where water is constantly recycled.
• Stores of the water cycle include water in the atmosphere, surface stores like puddles and lakes, aquifers, ice and snow, and seas and oceans.
• Transfers of water within the cycle include evaporation, condensation, transpiration, evapotranspiration, precipitation, overland flow, infiltration, percolation, and groundwater flow.
• Through flow is the water moving through the soil below the surface and above the water table.
• A drainage basin is an open system and is unique in shape, size, and features based on rock types, relief, and land use.
• All drainage basins have common features like watershed, source, confluence, tributary, mouth, and channel network.
• The number of tributaries in a drainage basin is referred to as the drainage density.
• The river regime is a record of changes in river discharge over a year and is influenced by factors like temperature, vegetation, land use, and human activity.
• A storm hydrograph shows changes in river discharge after a storm event and includes features like base flow, peak rainfall, rising limb, peak discharge, lag time, and recessional limb.
• The lag time for a river can be calculated by finding the difference between the peak rainfall and peak discharge on a storm hydrograph.
• Factors like climate, vegetation, land use, geology, soils, abstraction, dams, and relief can affect the discharge or regime of a river.
• Factors that increase overland flow can lead to shorter lag times, increased discharge, and steeper rising limb on a storm hydrograph.