INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT WATER

How much water is on the earth?
There are about 326 million cubic miles (1.4 billion cubic kilometers) of water. There are over a million million (1,000,000,000,000) gallons of water per cubic mile (0.9 million million liters per cubic kilometer).

How much of the earth's water is fresh?
Only about 3 percent of the earth's water is fresh. About three-fourths of the earth's fresh water is frozen in icecaps and other glaciers. Glaciers contain as much water as flows in all the earth's rivers in about 1,000 years.

How much water do living things contain?
All living things consist mostly of water. For example, the body of a human being is usually 50 to 75 percent water. An elephant is about 70 percent water. A potato is about 80 percent water. A tomato is about 95 percent water.

How much water does a person take in over a lifetime?
On the average, a person takes in about 16,000 gallons (60,600 liters) of water during his or her life.
What are the different forms of water? Water is the only substance on earth that is naturally present in three different forms--as a liquid, a solid (ice), and a gas (water vapor).

How much water does a person use every day?
On the average, each person in the United States uses more than 100 gallons (380 liters) of water a day in the home.

What is the largest single use of water?
The largest single use of water is by industry. It takes about 80 gallons (300 liters) of water to make the paper for one Sunday newspaper, and about 20 gallons of water per pound (170 liters per kilogram) of steel produced.