Water on Earth
11 hours ago
- #Environmental Visualization
- #Water Resources
- #Earth Science
- Earth's surface is over 70% water, primarily oceans.
- USGS visualization shows all Earth's water in spheres: a large one (1.38 billion km³) for total water, a smaller one for freshwater (excluding ice caps), and a tiny one for lake/river freshwater.
- Oceans hold about 96% of Earth's water, while ice caps and glaciers account for roughly 1.74%, and groundwater makes up around 1.69%.
- Humans use significant amounts of surface and groundwater daily, with 1.24 trillion liters of surface water and 312.7 billion liters of groundwater used in 2005.
- Most freshwater is inaccessible, locked in polar ice caps, highlighting challenges in freshwater availability.