HOW IS WATER DIVIDED ON EARTH?
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How much of Earth is covered in water?
f Earth was the size of a basketball, all of its water would fit into a ping pong ball.
How much water is that? It's roughly 326 million cubic miles (1.332 billion cubic kilometers), according to a recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey. Some 72 percent of Earth is covered in water, but 97 percent of that is salty ocean water and not suitable for drinking.
Types of Water on Earth
Fresh water (also 'freshwater' or 'fresh-water') is water that does not have a lot of salt in it.
When people say 'fresh water', they usually mean water from the lakes, rivers, snow, and ice, which is not salty. It also can mean water that people can drink.
The oceans and seas are made up of salt water, which people cannot drink.
However, people cannot drink all fresh water, because it might be contaminated. It might have harmful bacteria in it, or poisonous because of chemicals it contains. Water from a tap has been tested and treated so that it is safe to drink. This applies to most countries, but in some place the water needs to be boiled first to kill the germs and drunk after it has cooled down.
Fresh water that people can drink safely is called 'potable water'. Desalinationcan turn salt water into drinkable water.
Systems of where water can be found
Rivers, lakes, and marshlands, such as (from top) South America's Amazon River, Russia's Lake Baikal, and the Everglades in the United States, are types of freshwater systems.Fresh water habitats are divided into lentic systems, which are the stillwaters including ponds, lakes, swamps and mires; lotic, or running-water systems; and groundwaterwhich flows in rocks and aquifers. There is, in addition, a zone which bridges between groundwater and lotic systems, which is the hyporheic zone, which underlies many larger rivers and can contain substantially more water than is seen in the open channel. It may also be in direct contact with the underlying underground water. The majority of fresh water on Earth is in ice caps.
The source of almost all fresh water is precipitation from the atmosphere, in the form of mist, rain and snow. Fresh water falling as mist, rain or snow contains materials dissolved from the atmosphere and material from the sea and land over which the rain bearing clouds have traveled. In industrialized areas rain is typically acidic because of dissolved oxides of sulfur and nitrogen formed from burning of fossil fuels in cars, factories, trains and aircraft and from the atmospheric emissions of industry. In some cases this acid rain results in pollution of lakes and rivers.
In coastal areas fresh water may contain significant concentrations of salts derived from the sea if windy conditions have lifted drops of seawater into the rain-bearing clouds. This can give rise to elevated concentrations of sodium, chloride, magnesium and sulfate as well as many other compounds in smaller concentrations.
In desert areas, or areas with impoverished or dusty soils, rain-bearing winds can pick up sand and dust and this can be deposited elsewhere in precipitation and causing the freshwater flow to be measurably contaminated both by insoluble solids but also by the soluble components of those soils. Significant quantities of iron may be transported in this way including the well-documented transfer of iron-rich rainfall falling in Brazil derived from sand-storms in the Sahara in north Africa.
Water is a critical issue for the survival of all living organisms. Some can use salt water but many organisms including the great majority of higher plants and most mammals must have access to fresh water to live. Some terrestrial mammals, especially desert rodents appear to survive without drinking but they do generate water through the metabolism of cereal seeds and they also have mechanisms to conserve water to the maximum degree.
Out of all the water on Earth, saline water in oceans, seas and saline groundwater make up about 97% of it. Only 2.5–2.75% is fresh water, including 1.75–2% frozen in glaciers, ice and snow, 0.5–0.75% as fresh groundwater and soil moisture, and less than 0.01% of it as surface water in lakes, swamps and rivers. Freshwater lakes contain about 87% of this fresh surface water, including 29% in the African Great Lakes, 22% in Lake Baikal in Russia, 21% in the North American Great Lakes, and 14% in other lakes. Swamps have most of the balance with only a small amount in rivers, most notably the Amazon River. The atmosphere contains 0.04% water. In areas with no fresh water on the ground surface, fresh water derived from precipitation may, because of its lower density, overlie saline ground water in lenses or layers. Most of the world's fresh water is frozen in ice sheets. Many areas suffer from lack of distribution of fresh water, such as deserts.
*Information found from Kiddle
Fun Facts about Earths Water
Here's how Earth's freshwater is spread around the globe:
f Earth was the size of a basketball, all of its water would fit into a ping pong ball.
How much water is that? It's roughly 326 million cubic miles (1.332 billion cubic kilometers), according to a recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey. Some 72 percent of Earth is covered in water, but 97 percent of that is salty ocean water and not suitable for drinking.
Types of Water on Earth
Fresh water (also 'freshwater' or 'fresh-water') is water that does not have a lot of salt in it.
When people say 'fresh water', they usually mean water from the lakes, rivers, snow, and ice, which is not salty. It also can mean water that people can drink.
The oceans and seas are made up of salt water, which people cannot drink.
However, people cannot drink all fresh water, because it might be contaminated. It might have harmful bacteria in it, or poisonous because of chemicals it contains. Water from a tap has been tested and treated so that it is safe to drink. This applies to most countries, but in some place the water needs to be boiled first to kill the germs and drunk after it has cooled down.
Fresh water that people can drink safely is called 'potable water'. Desalinationcan turn salt water into drinkable water.
Systems of where water can be found
Rivers, lakes, and marshlands, such as (from top) South America's Amazon River, Russia's Lake Baikal, and the Everglades in the United States, are types of freshwater systems.Fresh water habitats are divided into lentic systems, which are the stillwaters including ponds, lakes, swamps and mires; lotic, or running-water systems; and groundwaterwhich flows in rocks and aquifers. There is, in addition, a zone which bridges between groundwater and lotic systems, which is the hyporheic zone, which underlies many larger rivers and can contain substantially more water than is seen in the open channel. It may also be in direct contact with the underlying underground water. The majority of fresh water on Earth is in ice caps.
The source of almost all fresh water is precipitation from the atmosphere, in the form of mist, rain and snow. Fresh water falling as mist, rain or snow contains materials dissolved from the atmosphere and material from the sea and land over which the rain bearing clouds have traveled. In industrialized areas rain is typically acidic because of dissolved oxides of sulfur and nitrogen formed from burning of fossil fuels in cars, factories, trains and aircraft and from the atmospheric emissions of industry. In some cases this acid rain results in pollution of lakes and rivers.
In coastal areas fresh water may contain significant concentrations of salts derived from the sea if windy conditions have lifted drops of seawater into the rain-bearing clouds. This can give rise to elevated concentrations of sodium, chloride, magnesium and sulfate as well as many other compounds in smaller concentrations.
In desert areas, or areas with impoverished or dusty soils, rain-bearing winds can pick up sand and dust and this can be deposited elsewhere in precipitation and causing the freshwater flow to be measurably contaminated both by insoluble solids but also by the soluble components of those soils. Significant quantities of iron may be transported in this way including the well-documented transfer of iron-rich rainfall falling in Brazil derived from sand-storms in the Sahara in north Africa.
Water is a critical issue for the survival of all living organisms. Some can use salt water but many organisms including the great majority of higher plants and most mammals must have access to fresh water to live. Some terrestrial mammals, especially desert rodents appear to survive without drinking but they do generate water through the metabolism of cereal seeds and they also have mechanisms to conserve water to the maximum degree.
Out of all the water on Earth, saline water in oceans, seas and saline groundwater make up about 97% of it. Only 2.5–2.75% is fresh water, including 1.75–2% frozen in glaciers, ice and snow, 0.5–0.75% as fresh groundwater and soil moisture, and less than 0.01% of it as surface water in lakes, swamps and rivers. Freshwater lakes contain about 87% of this fresh surface water, including 29% in the African Great Lakes, 22% in Lake Baikal in Russia, 21% in the North American Great Lakes, and 14% in other lakes. Swamps have most of the balance with only a small amount in rivers, most notably the Amazon River. The atmosphere contains 0.04% water. In areas with no fresh water on the ground surface, fresh water derived from precipitation may, because of its lower density, overlie saline ground water in lenses or layers. Most of the world's fresh water is frozen in ice sheets. Many areas suffer from lack of distribution of fresh water, such as deserts.
*Information found from Kiddle
Fun Facts about Earths Water
Here's how Earth's freshwater is spread around the globe:
- 70 percent of freshwater is locked in ice caps
- Less than 1 percent of the world's freshwater is readily accessible
- 6 countries (Brazil, Russia, Canada, Indonesia, China and Colombia) have 50 percent of the world's freshwater reserves
- One-third of the world's population lives in "water-stressed" countries, defined as a country's ratio of water consumption to water availability. Countries labeled as moderate to high stress consume 20 percent more water than their available supply.
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