Which term describes how connected the pore spaces are, allowing for the movement of water?

The term that describes how connected the pore spaces are, allowing for the movement of water, is permeability. Permeability refers to the ability of a material (usually sediment or rock) to transmit fluids through its interconnected pore spaces. High permeability means that water can easily flow through the material, often leading to quicker movement of groundwater.

In contrast, porosity refers to the total volume of pore space within a rock or sediment, regardless of how interconnected those spaces are. Groundwater is simply the water that resides in these pore spaces, while the water table is the upper surface of the saturated zone in an aquifer. Thus, while all of these terms relate to water movement and storage in geological contexts, permeability specifically captures the aspect of how effectively water can move through a material due to the connectivity of its pore spaces.