Tag: freshwater

Hydrological Cycle

A 2013 booklet ‘The Energy Sustainability Challenge: How will natural resource constraints change the way we produce and use energy?’ published by BP describes scientific findings in the fields of energy and natural resources. In the section on ‘New tools for systems analysis’ they present two Sankey diagrams. “Sankey diagrams are used to visualise how a resource moves from source to use.”


This one shows the hydrological cycle for precipitation over land areas. “Starting at the left, the distribution of rainfall among the continents is illustrated, with the numbers indicating the volume of water measured in km³. Of that water, the majority falls on forests, followed by grasslands, cropland and other land types. The water contributes to the products of these lands – terrestrial ecosystem services, food and other land use.”