Summary AQA Geography A level: Water and Carbon cycles case studies

Water and carbon case studies

, Major stores of water:

All water:

- 97% ocean
- 35 fresh water

Fresh water

- 79% ice caps and glaciers
- 20% ground water
- 1% easily accessible surface water

Easily accessible surface water

- 52% lakes
- 38% soil moisture
- 8% atmospheric water vapour
- 1% rivers
- 1% water within living organisms

Cryosphere:

- Most of Greenland and Antarctica is covered by 2 major ice sheets
- 99% of freshwater ice contained in Antarctic and Greenland
- Antarctic ice sheet extends 14 million km2
- Greenland ice sheet extends 1.7 million km2



Interception store

- Density of vegetation cover impacts interception
- Needly leaf trees captured 22% of the rainfall while broad leaf deciduous forests intercepted
19%; difference may be due to the density of vegetation cover rather than the structure of
leaves

Soil storage

- Pore spaces between the soil particles can be filled with both air and water
- Amount of pore differs between different soils
- Accounts for 40-60% of clay soil volume but 20-45% for fine sand

River exe (drainage basin)

- Upper catchment: 601km2
- 84.4% impermeable rocks
- 67% of land used for agriculture
- 3% peat bogs