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
, 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
