medium difficulty5 min

Water Cycle

The water cycle is the continuous movement of water between Earth’s surface and atmosphere through evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, and runoff.

In one line: Heat lifts water; cooling makes clouds; gravity brings rain.

Practice This Concept

Understand it

Solar heat evaporates water from oceans, lakes, and soil.
Plants add water vapour by transpiration.
Water vapour cools and condenses to form clouds.
When droplets become heavy, precipitation occurs as rain, snow, or hail.
Water then returns to rivers, groundwater, and oceans.

Example

After a hot day, water evaporates from a pond, forms clouds after cooling, and later returns as rainfall.

Rule to remember

Rule: solar energy drives evaporation, and cooling of water vapour causes condensation.

See it worked out

Follow the example line by line, then use the same method on new questions.

Worked example

1In summer, more evaporation can occur from a lake.
2If the vapour cools high in the atmosphere, clouds form; later rain returns water to land and water bodies.

Method you can reuse

Start with evaporation or transpiration, move to condensation and cloud formation, then precipitation, followed by runoff, infiltration, and collection.

Sketch it in your answer

Draw water body, Sun, evaporation arrows, cloud condensation, rainfall, runoff to river, infiltration into ground, and transpiration from plants.

Check yourself

Answer the question in your head before opening the answer.

Try it yourself

Why is the water cycle called a cycle?

Think first, then show answer

It is called a cycle because water keeps moving between land, water bodies, living organisms, and the atmosphere, and the same water can return again through repeated processes.

Common wrong answer

Water is used up after rainfall.

Why it loses marks: Water changes place and form but continues circulating through the cycle.

Don't mix this up

Students sometimes treat the water cycle as having a fixed starting point. It is a continuous cycle, so any stage can be used to begin an explanation.

Exam tip

Use arrows and sequence words: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff or infiltration, and collection.

Water Cycle diagram

Open full screen to read every label clearly.

Write it in the exam

Each point is worth about one mark. Write point 1 for a 1-mark question and keep adding points as the marks go up.

How CBSE asks it

Students may be asked to label a water cycle diagram or explain how rainwater eventually returns to oceans.

1
Enough for 1 mark
The water cycle is the continuous movement of water between Earth’s surface and atmosphere through evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, and runoff.
2
Add for 2 marks
Example: After a hot day, water evaporates from a pond, forms clouds after cooling, and later returns as rainfall.
3
Add for 3 marks
Solar heat evaporates water from oceans, lakes, and soil.

MCQ Quiz

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