{"id":1280,"date":"2026-05-12T21:47:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/chapter\/introduction-12\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:21:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:21:35","slug":"introduction-12","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/chapter\/introduction-12\/","title":{"raw":"14.1 Introduction","rendered":"14.1 Introduction"},"content":{"raw":"<div id=\"introduction-11\" class=\"level1\">\r\n<div data-custom-style=\"First Paragraph\">\r\n\r\nWe\u2019ve looked at groundwater and we\u2019ve looked at surface water\u2026now let\u2019s look at what is between the two. The layer between the ground surface and the water table\u2014commonly referred to as the <em>unsaturated zone<\/em>\u2014contains a combination of water and air. This part of the subsurface is important for several reasons: The soils and moisture in this zone support plants, chemical and organic processes filter contaminants and affect the chemistry of groundwater, and the unsaturated zone is an avenue of recharge to unconfined aquifers. The same basic laws of physics that govern the flow of fluids in saturated units are at work in the unsaturated zone, however, the processes involved are much more complicated in the unsaturated zone than they are in saturated rock and sediment. In this section, we discuss some of the processes at work in the unsaturated zone.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div id=\"introduction-11\" class=\"level1\">\n<div data-custom-style=\"First Paragraph\">\n<p>We\u2019ve looked at groundwater and we\u2019ve looked at surface water\u2026now let\u2019s look at what is between the two. The layer between the ground surface and the water table\u2014commonly referred to as the <em>unsaturated zone<\/em>\u2014contains a combination of water and air. This part of the subsurface is important for several reasons: The soils and moisture in this zone support plants, chemical and organic processes filter contaminants and affect the chemistry of groundwater, and the unsaturated zone is an avenue of recharge to unconfined aquifers. The same basic laws of physics that govern the flow of fluids in saturated units are at work in the unsaturated zone, however, the processes involved are much more complicated in the unsaturated zone than they are in saturated rock and sediment. In this section, we discuss some of the processes at work in the unsaturated zone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"menu_order":58,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-1280","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":1506,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1763,"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1280\/revisions\/1763"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/1506"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1280\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=1280"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=1280"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/books.gw-project.org\/basic-hydrogeology-an-introduction-to-the-fundamentals-of-groundwater-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=1280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}