The Water Portal

The multiple arches of the Pont du Gard in Roman Gaul (modern-day southern France). The upper tier encloses an aqueduct that carried water to Nimes in Roman times; its lower tier was expanded in the 1740s to carry a wide road across the river.
The multiple arches of the Pont du Gard in Roman Gaul (modern-day southern France). The upper tier encloses an aqueduct that carried water to Nimes in Roman times; its lower tier was expanded in the 1740s to carry a wide road across the river.

Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula H2O. It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, and it is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a solvent). It is vital for all known forms of life, despite not providing food energy or organic micronutrients. Its chemical formula, H2O, indicates that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds. The hydrogen atoms are attached to the oxygen atom at an angle of 104.45°. "Water" is also the name of the liquid state of H2O at standard temperature and pressure.

Because Earth's environment is relatively close to water's triple point, water exists on Earth as a solid, a liquid, and a gas. It forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds consist of suspended droplets of water and ice, its solid state. When finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is steam or water vapor.

Water covers about 71% of the Earth's surface, with seas and oceans making up most of the water volume (about 96.5%). Small portions of water occur as groundwater (1.7%), in the glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland (1.7%), and in the air as vapor, clouds (consisting of ice and liquid water suspended in air), and precipitation (0.001%). Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea. (Full article...)

Selected article -

An ice block, photographed at the Duluth Canal Park in Minnesota

Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 °C, 32 °F, or 273.15 K. As a naturally occurring crystalline inorganic solid with an ordered structure, ice is considered to be a mineral. Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color.

In the Solar System, ice is abundant and occurs naturally from as close to the Sun as Mercury to as far away as the Oort cloud objects. Beyond the Solar System, it occurs as interstellar ice. It is abundant on Earth's surface  particularly in the polar regions and above the snow line  and, as a common form of precipitation and deposition, plays a key role in Earth's water cycle and climate. It falls as snowflakes and hail or occurs as frost, icicles or ice spikes and aggregates from snow as glaciers and ice sheets. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) -

More did you know -

DYK Question Mark
DYK Question Mark

Water News

Note: this section was updated in February 2020

Selected picture

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories
Water
Water by city
Water by continent
Water by country
Water by dependent territory
Water by region
Forms of water
Anoxic waters
Aquatic ecology
Aquatic organisms
Aquatic therapy
Bodies of water
Body water
Water castles
Water chemistry
Water clocks
Water in culture
Desiccation
Drinking water
Water and the environment
Extraterrestrial water
Flood
Fluvial landforms
Fresh water
Hydraulic rams
Hydraulophones
Hydropower
Ice
Lacustrine landforms
Water management
Moisture protection
Water organizations
Water physics
Water and politics
Water power
Saline water
Water scarcity
Water and society
Spa waters
Water technology
Water torture
Water transport
Underwater
Waterborne diseases
Watermills
Waterproofing

Topics

General images

The following are images from various water-related articles on Wikipedia.

Wikiprojects


Lake Nyos WikiProject Lakes
  • 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 provides information on water purification.
  • WikiProject Sanitation provides information on all issues surrounding sanitation, including wastewater management.
  • WikiProject Lakes describes the Earth's lakes. The project aims to consolidate and unify pages relating to lakes around the world.
  • WikiProject Dams is a WikiProject formed to organize and improve articles related to dams.

Things you can do


Here are some tasks awaiting attention:
  • Stubs: Expand water stubs
  • Other:
    • Invite water experts to contribute their information.
    • Add your expert knowledge for your local river at WikiProject Rivers.
    • Help rotate/refresh the three items in the "Did you know?" box.
    • Expand articles on local lakes at WikiProject Lakes
    • Write or improve an article on a country whose water sector you know well at Category:Water supply and sanitation by country

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

More portals

Discover Wikipedia using portals

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.