Water beneath your feet
All the earth’s water isn’t in seas, lakes, ponds, and rivers. A lot of
it is beneath your feet—down in the ground.
When rain falls, much of the water seeps down through the soil. It keeps
going until it reaches solid rock that it can’t get through. Then it
spreads out, filling every nook and cranny in the ground.
The top of this underground water is called the water table. When there
is a lot of rain, the water soon fills all the open spaces. Then the
water table gets higher.
In some places the water table comes all the way to the top of the
ground. Then, water bubbles out and makes a natural fountain called a
spring. Sometimes a spring is the start of a river.
Underground water is usually cool and clean and good to drink. People
often dig wells to get this water. There is some underground water
almost everywhere in the world—even in deserts. But in a desert the
water is very, very far down.
