Elia Galiouna
The report presents “An overview of sustainable and self-sufficient water cycle future of Texel Island in the Netherlands”.
Water plays a critical role in the natural environment, supporting all of the major biological and ecological processes, but it is also crucial to the economy, well-being, food production and industrial sector, as well as human health and welfare. As a result, water cycle is an important and fundamental ecological process that regulates, shapes and maintains:weather and climate, landforms and soils, plant and animal communities and finally human society.
Water Cycle according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is: “The water cycle describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. The mass of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time but the partitioning of the water into the major reservoirs of ice, fresh water, saline water and atmospheric water is variable depending on a wide range of climatic variables. The water moves from one reservoir to another, such as from river to ocean, or from the ocean to the atmosphere, by the physical processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and subsurface flow. In so doing, the water goes through different phases: liquid, solid (ice), and gas (vapor).”
In our report, as a water cycle sub-system, the term has a more specific perspective and it is related to the Dutch island of Texel and its water system. It considers the water cycle as a whole- holistically and how planning for each element of water services (drinking water, sewage, waterways, stormwater and groundwater) can merge to provide more sustainable solution for the island achieving economic, social and environmental benefits.