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Groundwater
Although this may seem surprising, water beneath the ground is commonplace. Usually groundwater travels slowly and silently beneath the surface, but in some locations it bubbles to the surface at springs. The products of erosion and deposition by groundwater were described in the Erosion and Deposition chapter.
Groundwater is the largest reservoir of liquid fresh water on Earth and is found in aquifers, porous rock and sediment with water in between. Water is attracted to the soil particles and capillary action, which describes how water moves through a porous media, moves water from wet soil to dry areas.
Aquifers are found at different depths. Some are just below the surface and some are found much deeper below the land surface. A region may have more than one aquifer beneath it and even most deserts are above aquifers. The source region for an aquifer beneath a desert is likely to be far from where the aquifer is located; for example, it may be in a mountain area.
The amount of water that is available to enter groundwater in a region is influenced by the local climate, the slope of the land, the type of rock found at the surface, the vegetation cover, land use in the area, and water retention, which is the amount of water that remains in the ground. More water goes into the ground where there is a lot of rain, flat land, porous rock, exposed soil, and where water is not already filling the soil and rock.
The residence time of water in a groundwater aquifer can be from minutes to thousands of years. Groundwater is often called “fossil water” because it has remained in the ground for so long, often since the end of the ice ages.
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