How long does it take to clean the water once it has gone through the hydrologic cycle?
The hydrologic cycle is a natural cleansing cycle. When water evaporates it leaves behind all pollutants and when it re-condenses it is pure water. It can potentially become polluted as it falls as rain, flows as rivers or streams, or enters the oceans. The amount of time that water remains in various parts of the hydrologic cycle varies, some water can spend 10’s of thousands of years as groundwater, millions of years as ice, several million years as deep ocean water, or maybe just a few days as surface ocean water before evaporating to form clouds. 19. How much water do humans have access to for their domestic, agricultural and industrial needs? In principle all water. In reality, less than 1 percent. The largest reservoir available to us is ocean water, however deep ocean water is really not accessible, and ocean water in general is expensive to use because of the energy requirement for desalination. Perhaps the most realistic assessment is some portion of groundwater and water in r
