How much water is on Earth?

How much water do you think there are on Earth? Approximately 70% of the surface of the Earth is covered by water, and oceans contain about 96.5% of all water from the planet. But there is water in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, ice caps and glaciers, as moisture in the soil and groundwater, even in your body and your dog. However, all that water is in the "small" area of ​​1,385 km in diameter.

The majority of water on the surface of the earth, over 96%, which is salt water in the oceans. However, the sources of fresh water, such as water from streams, rivers, lakes and groundwater which provide people (and all life) most of the water they need every day.

How much water is on Earth?

So how much water there is on Earth? Here are some numbers to help you answer that question. Consider:

If all the water on Earth (oceans, ice caps and glaciers, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and water in the atmosphere) was put into a sphere, the diameter of this ball would be about 1385 miles. The volume of all the water would be about 1386 million cubic kilometers (km 3).

Approximately 12,900 km 3 of water, mostly in the form of water vapor in the atmosphere is at any given time. If all that water rush while Earth would be covered by only 1 inch of water.

Each day, 1,170 km 3 of water evaporate into the atmosphere.

Fresh water on Earth is much more on the ground than what is available in lakes and rivers. More than 8.4 million km 3 of fresh water on Earth, is located about a mile from the surface. But most of the fresh water, 29.2 million km 3, is found mainly in the Polar Regions and Greenland.

Where is the water on Earth?

Of all the water in the world, over 96% is salty. And the total freshwater, over 68% are "trapped" in ice. Another 30% of freshwater is in the ground. The rivers are the source of most of the fresh surface water people use, but are only 1250 km 3, or about 0.0001% of the total water on the planet.