- Description: This sphere includes all of Earth’s water, whether in liquid, solid (ice), or gaseous (water vapor) form, focusing on the water body or phenomenon itself.
- Subclasses (Complexes):
hydrosphere_freshwater_surface: Data related to freshwater bodies on the Earth’s surface (e.g., rivers, lakes, ponds, wetlands, estuaries, streamflow, lake levels).hydrosphere_groundwater: Information about water found beneath the Earth’s surface in soil pores and fractures (e.g., groundwater levels, aquifer characteristics, groundwater flow).hydrosphere_marine: Data related to oceans, seas, and coastal waters (e.g., sea surface temperature (water mass), ocean currents, salinity, marine water column temperature, tides, waves, bathymetry of water column).hydrosphere_cryosphere: Data related to frozen water bodies (e.g., glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice extent and thickness, permafrost distribution).hydrosphere_atmosphericwater: Information about water in the atmosphere (e.g., precipitation totals, humidity, cloud properties, water vapor content).hydrosphere_contaminants: Data related to the presence and distribution of pollutants within water bodies (e.g., water quality measurements for specific pollutants, chemical spills in rivers or oceans, microplastic concentrations in water).
- Common Overlaps & Distinctions:
- Ice/Snow as Land Cover: While
hydrosphere_cryosphere describes the physical properties of ice bodies, maps showing ice/snow as a surface feature are often in landuselancover_classified_products.
- Water Utilization: Data on the amount of water extracted or used (e.g., cubic meters of water abstracted) is in
socio_technical_resource_utilization.
- Flooding/Tsunamis: The hazard itself (e.g., flood extent maps, tsunami wave height) belongs here. The risk to human assets/populations is in
socio_technical_hazard_vulnerability_risk.
- Life in Water: The water body is
Hydrosphere, but the fish and other aquatic organisms are biosphere_fauna.