hydrology – Climate, Forests and Woodlands

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

Water Balance

Adapted from: Mary Nichols. 2007. Chapter 3: Hydrologic Processes in Riparian Areas. In: G. Zaimes (ed). Understanding Arizona’s Riparian Areas. University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. AZ 1432. Available at http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/natresources/az1432.pdf

Water balance is a method of book keeping used to summarize the amount of water cycling from the atmosphere, across land surfaces, into the ground, through plants, into the ocean, and back the atmosphere. It provides a good framework for understanding hydrologic processes. Water balances can vary year to …

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

The Hydrologic Cycle

Adapted from: Mary Nichols. 2007. Chapter 3: Hydrologic Processes in Riparian Areas. In: G. Zaimes (ed). Understanding Arizona’s Riparian Areas. University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. AZ 1432. Available at http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/natresources/az1432.pdf

The hydrologic cycle, or water cycle (Fig. 1), explains how water is moved from the earth to the atmosphere. Water moves to the atmosphere as water vapor through evaporation and transpiration. It condenses and falls to the earth’s surface as precipitation. Water then either travels across land surfaces in watersheds …

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

Watersheds and Vegetation

Adapted from: Mary Nichols. 2007. Chapter 4: Stream processes in riparian areas. In: G. Zaimes (ed). Understanding Arizona’s Riparian Areas. University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. AZ 1432. Available at http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/natresources/az1432.pdf

Figure 1. Vegetation found in watersheds can influence channel formation. Trees and fine-stemmed vegetation, such as grasses, influence how water flows, sediment deposition, and channel roughness. Photo by Chris Evans, River to River CWMA. Image courtesy of forestryimages.org.

The relatively dense stands of vegetation found along channels form in response …