Water Location
So Where IS All That Water?

So where is the earth's water located and in what forms does it exist? You can see how water is distributed by viewing these bar charts. The left-side bar shows where the water on Earth exists; about 97 percent of all water is in the oceans. The middle bar shows that three percent of all the earth's water is fresh water. The majority of that 69 percent is locked up in glaciers and icecaps , mainly in Greenland and Antarctica. You might be surprised that of the remaining fresh water, almost all of it is below your feet, as ground water . No matter where on earth you are standing, chances are that, at some depth, the ground below you is saturated with water. Of all the fresh water on earth, only about 0.3 percent is contained in rivers and lakes—yet rivers and lakes are not only the water we are most familiar with, it is also where most of the water we use in our everyday lives exists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 


How much of the earth's water is available for our uses ... and in what forms does it exist? You can best see how water is distributed by viewing these pie charts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



The top pie chart shows that over 99 percent of all water (oceans, seas, ice, most sand atmospheric water) is not available for our uses. And even of the remaining fraction of one percent (the small blue slice in the top pie chart), much of that is out of reach. Considering that most of the water we use in everyday life comes from rivers (the small dark blue slice in the bottom pie chart), you'll see we generally only make use of a tiny portion of the available water supplies. The bottom pie shows that the vast majority of the fresh water available for our uses is stored in the ground (the large grey slice in the second pie chart) line water.

 


 

 

 

Global Energies Inc.