2019-09-12 · All water on Earth

Almost none of Earth's water is a drink

The planet looks blue. Nearly all of that water is salt. Ice and groundwater take the next slices. One cell is every lake, river, cloud, and soil drop you might actually use.

1 cell = 1.4 million km³ of Earth water (0.1% of Earth's water) · 1,000 cells

Context

About 71% of Earth's surface is water-covered, but oceans hold roughly 96.5% of all water on the planet — almost all of it saline.

Of the small freshwater share, USGS notes over two-thirds is locked in ice caps and glaciers (mainly Antarctica and Greenland); most of the rest is groundwater, not rivers and lakes.

Rivers — the source of most fresh surface water people use — are only about 509 mi³ (2,120 km³), roughly one ten-thousandth of one percent of total water.

If all Earth's water formed a sphere, USGS puts its diameter at about 860 miles (1,385 km) — Salt Lake City to Topeka — for a volume near 1.386 billion km³.

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Context

About 71% of Earth's surface is water-covered, but oceans hold roughly 96.5% of all water on the planet — almost all of it saline.

Of the small freshwater share, USGS notes over two-thirds is locked in ice caps and glaciers (mainly Antarctica and Greenland); most of the rest is groundwater, not rivers and lakes.

Rivers — the source of most fresh surface water people use — are only about 509 mi³ (2,120 km³), roughly one ten-thousandth of one percent of total water.

If all Earth's water formed a sphere, USGS puts its diameter at about 860 miles (1,385 km) — Salt Lake City to Topeka — for a volume near 1.386 billion km³.