The given diagram illustrates the steps of a continuous cycle, the water cycle. Overall, it can easily be seen from the diagram that this cyclical process has 5 distinct phases on-going underneath and above the surface of the Earth, beginning with evaporation.
In the first step of the process, water in the ocean evaporates and is converted into water vapour which leads to the formation of clouds. Following this process, water in the clouds condenses and creates raindrops, once this step is done condensation helps the raindrops fall to the Earth’s surface as precipitation. Transpiration could also be done by the trees with the evaporation process which is a similar process with the water in the ocean.
Meanwhile, snow on the mountains melts and flows downhill as surface runoff. Once rainwater reaches the ground, some of it collects in lakes, while some percolates through the soil, the rain water percolates through the soil and reaches the groundwater. In the following step, groundwater flow takes the mixed water towards the ocean. In the final stage, ocean water evaporates and the process starts anew.
