Water streams across land, it flows between cells and it courses through our veins and through the plants that cover the earth. There's one thing all this moving water has in common: the direction in which it flows can be predicted by the physical property known as water potential.

What you'll learn in this topic

• how to predict the movement of water under various conditions
• that water always flows from higher to lower water potential
• that 3 factors determine water potential: solute concentration, pressure, and gravity.

Click here for an overview of water potential.

Your task is to use the water potential equation to predict the direction of water flow in several familiar situations.