Urbanistion -- this is the process where urban areas expand due to increased populations.

More impeamabile surfaces (tarmac and concrete) reduce inflitration.

Urban drainage systems deliever water downstream quicker then natural processes, reducing lag time and increasing flood risk down stream.

Can be seen in the flooding of the Somerset levels where urbanisation made the flooding worse.

Urban areas have a drasticlly lower level of vegitation and therefore a lower level of photosynthesis, decomposition and respiration (from plants).

Urban areas have high energy consumption that can lead to increased CO2 emissions.

Cement is a key component of urban areas and produces CO2 in manufacturing.

Irrigation diverts water to farms and away from rivers and much of this water is lost to evaportation, impacting downstream water cycles.

Natural forests or grasslands intercept more precipitation, meaning that farmland reduces lagtime.

Inflitration is increased in farmed areas due to ploughing and artifical drainage systems that divert water back to rivers.

Use of heavy machinary can compact soil and increase run off.

Deforesation to make way for farmland removes above ground and underground carbon stores.

Carbon stored in the soil is released when the soil is ploughed, but is not replenished as plants are havested and not left to decompose.

However, in the Great Plains wheat farms have a higher NPP then the orginal grasslands.

Sitka spruce have an interecption rate of 60%, in grasslands interception is around 10-20%.

When forests are harvested evoptransition drops, surface runoff increases and stream discharge increases (until trees are replanted).

Trees store 170-200 tonnes of carbon per hectare which is 10times higher then grasslands and 20times higher then heatlands.

Trees can sequest carbon from the atmosphere for hundreds of years.

Forest trees are only active carbon sinks for the first 80 to 100 years (after this they take in as much carbon as they store), this means plantations are rotated every 80 to 100 years.

Sinking water tables -- this is a reducation in the levels of groundwater.

In coastal areas, water extraction of aquifers can lead to saltwater entering groundwater supplies and making them unusable.

This is a chalk river located in the South of England, in the counties of Wiltshire and Berkshire.

Water extracted from the river upstream by Thames Water deos not re-enter the river as waste water later on.

Reduced areas of wetlands (which are good carbon stores) due to reduced flows.

Artesian basins -- when rocks for a basin like structure with layers of permiable and impermiable rocks an aquifer can form inbetween two layers of impermable rock.

Groundwater is found in a chalk rock layer that is sandwiched between London Clay and Gault Clay (impeamable rock).

Aquifers are refreshed by rainfall in the North Downs and Chiltern Hills.

In the 1990s it was rising at a rate of 3m per year and began to threaten buildings and tubelines, therefore since 1992 Thames Water has had limited extraction rights to prevent further rises in the water table.

Carbon sequestration -- this is the process in which carbon is taken out of the atmosphere and stored in solid or liquid form. This is done through both natural processes and can be done by humans from Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

CO2 is injected into pourus rock deep underground (this means that impermiable rocks are between the surface and the CO2).

High capital cost (Drax and Peterhead projects in the UK will cost £1 billion).

CCS could reduce CO2 emmissions from coal and gas powerstations by 80-90%.

Changes in evapotransipirtation during the day (high durring the day/low during the night).

In the tropics there is high convectional rainfall durring the day, but at night there is no rainfall.

Evapotranspiration is a lot higher during summer then it is during winter (for example solar input is 650W/m2 more in June then it is in December).

Durring the day CO2 flows from the atmosphere to the biosphere through photosynthesis and during the night this is reveresed and CO2 flows to the atmosphere through respiration.

Photosynthesis and NPP is a lot higher in summer then it is in winter (durring summer atmospheric CO2 concentrations drop by 2ppm).

There is an explosion of phytoplanklton populations in March due to warmer oceans and this population booms peaks in mid-summer where photosynthesis in the oceans also peaks.

Over the last 400,000 years there have been there have been 4 major glacial cycles during the height of these tempretures in the 'UK' can drop by 5oc and more then half the UK and Ireland were covered in ice.

Carbon can't escape the pedosphere due to it being covdered in ice.

Sea levels fall world wide by 100-130m as more water is stored in the cryosphere.

Biosphere shrinks and the water stored in the biosphere also shrinks.

Increased water vapour in the atmosphere should increase latent heat in the atmosphere and therefore increase the frequency of extreme wheather events.