Portal:Water

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Water Portal

Water (from the Old English word wæter) is a tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless (it has a slight hint of light blue) liquid in its pure form that is essential to all known forms of life and is known also as the most universal solvent. Water is an abundant substance on Earth. It exists in many places and forms. It appears mostly in the oceans and polar ice caps, but also as clouds, precipitation, rivers, aquifers and sea ice. On the planet, water is continuously moving through the cycle involving evaporation, precipitation, and runoff to the sea.

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The water cycle—technically known as the hydrologic cycle—is the circulation of water within the earth's hydrosphere, involving changes in the physical state of water between liquid, solid, and gas phases. The hydrologic cycle refers to the continuous exchange of water between atmosphere, land, surface and subsurface waters, and organisms. In addition to storage in various compartments (the ocean is one such "compartment"), the multiple cycles that make up the earth's water cycle involve five main physical actions: evaporation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and subsurface flow:

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Did you know...

...that "water bears" are small, segmented animals that can survive in a dehydrated state for nearly 10 years?

...that Frazil ice gives the ocean's surface a slightly oily appearance?

...that Water memory is a homeopathic concept, which holds that water is capable of containing "memory" of particles dissolved in it?

Water Rights

• "The Arizona Court of Appeals recently upheld a decision that the Arizona Department of Water Resources has the right to issue instream flow permits and affirmed the principle that instream flow and in situ water rights need not be diversionary." [1]

Photo gallery

• UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme photo library
• FAO Media Archive searchable by region and keyword
• The UK Collection of Freshwater Sites
• HyDis - Hydrologic Data and Information System GIS maps
• Water Science Picture Gallery from U.S. Geological Survey

Water News

• The Source Water and Sanitation News Service provides news in English, French and Spanish with an emphasis on rural and peri-urban areas in developing countries
• UNESCO Water Portal and weekly newsletter
• Global Water News Watch, from SAHRA in Arizona USA
• U.S. Water Monitor - a portal to federal water information
• Watershed News from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• USDA Soil Conservation Service website news
• Water information from the AWWA, FDA & NSF Sources

• The 2005 Preliminary Report of the Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable (SWRR) is now available.

Things you can do

• Invite water experts to contribute their information.

• Add your expert knowledge for your local river at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rivers.

• Help rotate/refresh the three items in the "Did you know?" box.

Categories

• Aquatic organisms
• Aqueducts
• Bathing
• Drinking water
• Forms of water
• Hydrography
• Hydrology
• Irrigation
• Plumbing
• Reservoirs
• Water chemistry
• Water management authorities
• Water sports
• Watersheds

See Category:Water for complete list.

Wikiprojects

• WikiProject Rivers is a WikiProject which aims primarily to describe the Earth's rivers in a consistent and complete fashion. The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Geography.

• WikiProject Water and sanitation provides information on water purification.

• WikiProject Lakes describes the Earth's lakes. The project aims to consolidate and unify pages relating to lakes around the world.

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