ABSTRACT
As we continue to follow our drop of water from the mountain to the sea, it may be stored for a time, either in a body of surface water or in groundwater. We postpone a look at groundwater storage to ‘rst investigate storage in a standing body of freshwater, thus leaving the lotic system and entering a lentic (slow) system. Lentic systems are also called “standing water” systems because the water ¤ow may be interrupted by a barrier of some kind. However, there is almost always some ¤ow out of the system, whether over a natural dam or into subsurface ¤ow.
