How much fresh water is really available to us?
The amount of fresh water that is available to humans is actually quite small; therefore we need to conserve and protect whatever we have, especially if we want our children’s children to have clean, safe drinking water. The Earth is unique in the fact that it is covered by so much water. Most of it, however, makes up the oceans – 97% in fact. Does that mean that humans depend on the remaining 3% to get our drinking water from? Well, no actually, because 2.15% of the Earth’s water is held in ice sheets and glaciers, like in the Arctic. This means that there’s only 0.85% of the Earth’s water that is available to us as a fresh water drinking source. The majority of this water is held under ground, as groundwater. Only a very small percentage forms rivers and lakes. Considering how precious this resource is, it is extremely important that it is well protected.
