Did you know?

How Much Water?

June 6, 2012 | USGS

“If you took all the water on earth – in oceans, ice caps, lakes, rivers, groundwater, the atmosphere, and living things – and wrapped it into a sphere, it would have a diameter of about 860 miles. That 860-mile-high sphere is represented by the largest bubble in the picture, which stretches from Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas. The much smaller blue sphere over Kentucky represents the world’s liquid freshwater, including groundwater, lakes, swamp water, and rivers. However, 99 percent of that bubble is groundwater, much of which is not accessible to  humans.