I imagine you’re familiar with the concept of water. Maybe you’ve gotten caught unprepared in a rainstorm, watched ducks hang out in a pond, had a snowball fight, or swam in the ocean. If so, you were witnessing part of the water cycle. But the water cycle, or the hydrologic cycle, if you want to get multi-syllabic about it, is more than just what we can see. The hydrologic cycle links together the atmosphere, the soil, and all the living and nonliving parts of this planet.