The water cycle is more than evaporation and rain. This course treats it as a connected land-atmosphere flow system, so you can understand how evapotranspiration, infiltration, runoff, groundwater, and precipitation interact across a watershed. It is designed for college students who want a real physical picture, not a list of vocabulary terms. By the end, you can reason through where water goes, what controls each pathway, and why simple water cycle diagrams leave out the important parts.
The course covers atmospheric humidity, condensation, precipitation, evaporation, and energy limits on drying, then moves into evapotranspiration, soil infiltration, groundwater and baseflow, and the main runoff generation mechanisms. It also covers stream hydrographs, simple watershed water budgets, and the ways real watersheds depart from idealized models.