Water Sector

The water sector is dedicated to one simple yet utterly essential substance: Water! This liquid is so common place in our lives that we often don't think about its absolutely vital role in our ecosystem. Its properties are even more important to the marine ecosystems than they are to land based organisms like ourselves.

It is a good solvent and has a high surface tension, and thus allows organic compounds and living things to be transported in it. Fresh water has its greatest density at 4°C, then becoming less dense as it freezes or heats up from this point. As a stable, polar molecule prevalent in the atmosphere, it plays an important atmospheric role as an absorber of infrared radiation, crucial in the atmospheric greenhouse effect without of which, the average surface temperature would be -18° Celsius. Water also has an unusually high specific heat, which plays many roles in regulating global and regional climate, such as the Gulf Stream climate, allowing life to survive.

Life on earth has evolved with and adapted itself to the important features of water. The existence of abundant liquid, vapor and solid forms of water on Earth has been an important factor in the abundant colonization of Earth's various environments by life-forms adapted to those varying and often extreme conditions.