what percentage of water on earth is available for human use

what percentage of water on earth is available for human use

Hello dear friends, thank you for choosing us. In this post on the solsarin site, we will talk about “ what percentage of water on earth is available for human use“.
Stay with us.
Thank you for your choice.

A Clean Water Crisis

The water you drink today has likely been around in one form or another since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, hundreds of millions of years ago.

While the amount of freshwater on the planet has remained fairly constant over time — continually recycled through the atmosphere and back into our cups — the population has exploded. This means that every year competition for a clean, copious supply of water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and sustaining life intensifies.

Water scarcity is an abstract concept to many and a stark reality for others. It is the result of myriad environmental, political, economic, and social forces.

Freshwater

Freshwater makes up a very small fraction of all water on the planet. While nearly 70 percent of the world is covered by water, only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. The rest is saline and ocean-based. Even then, just 1 percent of our freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields. In essence, only 0.007 percent of the planet’s water is available to fuel and feed its 6.8 billion people.

Due to geography, climate, engineering, regulation, and competition for resources, some regions seem relatively flush with freshwater, while others face drought and debilitating pollution. In much of the developing world, clean water is either hard to come by or a commodity that requires laborious work or significant currency to obtain.

Water Is Life

Wherever they are, people need water to survive. Not only is the human body 60 percent water, the resource is also essential for producing food, clothing, and computers, moving our waste stream, and keeping us and the environment healthy.

What is the Percentage of Drinkable Water on Earth?

With merely 5% of the ocean floor having been discovered and mapped, and with the deepest part reaching almost 7 miles, water seems to be as abundant as it is ominous.

Yet, it wouldn’t take much of the mineral-rich ocean to dehydrate a human being if consumed. The amount of sodium in seawater is much more concentrated than what the body can safely process, requiring more water as salt is consumed. Eventually, death would come as a result of dehydration without ever having the thirst quenched (Ocean Service).

Of the waters occupying 70%

Of the waters occupying 70% of the earth’s surface, only 3% is considered freshwater. And most of this freshwater reserve is inaccessible to humans — locked up in polar ice caps or stored too far underneath the earth’s surface to be extracted. Furthermore, much of the freshwater that is accessible has become highly polluted.

This leaves us with roughly 0.4% of the earth’s water which is usable and drinkable to be shared among the 7 billion of its inhabitants (World Atlas, 2018).

Surface Water

Surface water is any body of water that is on the earth’s surface: lakes, rivers, streams, and reservoirs. 80% of the world’s daily water usage comes from surface water and makes up the majority of the water used for irrigation and public supply. Oceans are the world’s largest source of surface water and make up 97% of it, but due to its high salinity, it is unusable for humans (Postel, 2010).

The earth’s surface waters

The earth’s surface waters travel through a complex network of flowing rivers and streams. Rivers can obtain their water from two sources: base flow and runoff. Base flow is when the river collects its water from water-saturated areas in the ground, adding to its volume. Runoff is when the force of gravity naturally pulls water downhill from higher to lower altitudes. They usually start as small creeks in the mountains, and then gradually merge with larger streams as they flow downward, eventually forming large rivers which empty out into the ocean.

Groundwater

Groundwater is the water beneath the earth’s surface that is at 100% saturation. Anything less than 100% is considered soil mixture. 98% of the earth’s freshwater is indeed groundwater and it is about 60 times more plentiful than the surface water.

Groundwater travels through holes and cracks in the bedrock.

The Hydrologic Cycle

When water evaporates, liquid molecules become gas molecules as they rise through the atmosphere. Condensation begins when the moisture from these gas molecules becomes so great that they fall back to earth in the form of precipitation.

They are the storehouses for the world’s freshwater.

Water Conflicts Around the World

There are 263 rivers and countless aquifers worldwide which either cross or demarcate geopolitical boundaries. The Atlas of International Freshwater Agreement states that 90 percent of the world’s countries share these water sources with at least one or two other governing bodies. The atrocities in Darfur are an example of conflict resulting from clean water shortages.

• Violence erupts in 1992 over a dispute between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan regarding the contested Tyuyamuyun reservoir.

Random Posts

• what percentage of brain cells do we use
• how much alcohol does budweiser zero have
• what percent of the world’s water is in the pacific ocean
• what proof is smirnoff red label
• how to find mass percent of hydrogen in water

Change is Needed

Water is finite. The amount of water circulating through the earth’s hydrologic cycle is the same amount that has been there since the earth’s beginning, not a drop more or less. What has changed is the number of people living on earth, and thus, the amount of drinkable water required for human sustenance. The United Nations reports that in the last century alone, water consumption has grown at more than twice the rate of population increase.

Distribution of the Earth’s water

Earth is known as the “Blue Planet” because 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. Water also exists below land surface and as water vapor in the air. Water is a finite source. The bottled water that is consumed today might possibly be the same water that once trickled down the back of a wooly mammoth. The Earth is a closed system, meaning that very little matter, including water, ever leaves or enters the atmosphere; the water that was here billions of years ago is still here now. But, the Earth cleans and replenishes the water supply through the hydrologic cycle.

The earth

The earth has an abundance of water, but unfortunately, only a small percentage (about 0.3 percent), is even usable by humans. The other 99.7 percent is in the oceans, soils, icecaps, and floating in the atmosphere. Still, much of the 0.3 percent that is useable is unattainable. Most of the water used by humans comes from rivers. The visible bodies of water are referred to as surface water. The majority of fresh water is actually found underground as soil moisture and in aquifers. Groundwater can feed the streams, which is why a river can keep flowing even when there has been no precipitation. Humans can use both ground and surface water.

Fresh water

Fresh water (or freshwater) is any naturally occurring water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Though the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include non-salty mineral-rich waters such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water may include water in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, icebergs, bogs, ponds, lakes, rainfall, rivers, streams, and groundwater contained in underground aquifers.

Water is critical to the survival of all living organisms. Many organisms can thrive on salt water, but the great majority of higher plants and most mammals need fresh water to live.

resource: wikipedia