ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Lak wettability index

Okay kiddo, have you ever gone swimming and noticed how sometimes the water just rolls right off your skin but other times it seems to stick to you? That's kind of like what wettability is all about.

Now, imagine you have a toy boat in a lake. If the boat sits on the surface of the water and can move around easily, that means the lake has a high wettability, which basically means the water sticks to or "wets" the surface of whatever it touches. But if the boat can't move and just stays in one place, that means the lake has a low wettability, and the water doesn't stick as well.

Scientists use something called a lak wettability index to measure how well water sticks to different surfaces in a lake. They do this by measuring how quickly water spreads out or "wets" the surface, and then they can use that measurement to rank the wettability of different surfaces. This can be really helpful for things like predicting how pollutants will spread through the lake or understanding how different organisms interact with their environment.

So basically, a lak wettability index is just a way for scientists to figure out how well water sticks to different things in a lake, kind of like how you can tell if your skin is wet or dry after a swim.
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