What part of all the water supplies on Earth is made up of fresh water

What part of all the water supplies on Earth is made up of fresh water



The concept of fresh water includes those waters that have a minimum level of salinity. If the water in any of its three states has a salinity of not more than 0.1%, it is classified as freshwater.





What part of all the water supplies on Earth is made up of fresh water

















Most of this water is contained in iceArrays and glaciers of the polar regions. In addition to the frozen state, it is found in streams, rivers, fresh lakes and underground waters. The amount of water varies from 2.5 to 3%, of which 85-90% falls on glaciers.

Artificial desalination of water

Increasing from year to year, water pollutionsources, population growth, as well as development of new territories, poses challenges for scientists to develop methods for artificial desalination of water. For this purpose, solar desalination, the method of condensation of water vapor, using deep seawater and condensation of steam in diurnal cold accumulators were introduced. The role of the latter is performed by caves of coastal rocks. The latter method is most popular because of the ability to create large fresh water reserves. The fact is that fresh water layers often go under the seabed, and cracks in impenetrable layers allow to beat the keys. Refrigeration plant manufacturers, having estimated the trends of rising fresh water cost, have developed an installation capable of receiving water from humid air in domestic conditions by condensation.

Distribution of fresh water

Water on the globe is distributed extremelyunevenly. Asia and Europe, where 70% of the world's population live, account for only 39% of water reserves. Russia takes the leading place in this issue. Unique in its kind Lake Baikakh stores 20% of the world's freshwater lake water and 82% of Russia's reserves. Baikal is the oldest lake on the planet, its age is determined by scientists within 25-30 million years. In the category of the most fresh lakes behind Lake Baikal follow Ladoga and Onega, located in Eastern Europe and Lake Benner in Western Europe. The water of the latter is as close as possible to distilled water. The largest area of ​​the water surface - Lake Superior, which is part of the Great Lakes system of North America, has an area of ​​83,350 square kilometers. Separate attention deserves Lake Vostok, the water surface of which has not yet been seen by any person. It is located under a four-kilometer layer of Antarctic ice and is considered to be the cleanest on the planet. Its discovery is the merit of Russian scientists of the Antarctic station Vostok. On Earth more than 1.2 billion people live in a constant shortage of drinking water. According to scientists by the end of the XXI century this number could grow to 3.5 billion.