# Water Cycle
Status: public
Confidence: medium (0.83) (verified)
Last verified: 2026-05-28
Generation: ai_assisted

## TL;DR
The water cycle, also called the hydrologic cycle, describes how water moves among ocean, atmosphere, land, groundwater, ice, rivers, and living systems. Solar energy, gravity, and atmospheric circulation drive processes such as evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration, and storage.

## Core Explanation
Water does not move through a single neat loop. It can evaporate from oceans and land, condense into clouds, return as rain or snow, flow across the surface, infiltrate into soil and aquifers, remain stored as ice, or return to the ocean through rivers and groundwater discharge. Human water use and climate variability can alter local availability even though the global cycle remains a continuous exchange among reservoirs.

## Further Reading

- [USGS water cycle](https://www.usgs.gov/index.php/publications/water-cycle)
- [NASA Earth Observatory water cycle](https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-water-cycle)
- [NOAA water cycle](https://prod-01-alb-www-noaa.woc.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/freshwater/water-cycle)