Many facts about water that you may not know.

Water is the most important resource in the world. Here are amazing facts about water that you may not know.

68.7% of the fresh water on Earth is trapped in glaciers.1
30% of fresh water is in the ground.1
1.7% of the world’s water is frozen and therefore unusable.1
Approximately 110 billion liters of water are used in the United States per day.1
Nearly one-half of the water used by Americans is used for thermoelectric power generation.1
In one year, the average American residence uses over 30,000 liters (indoors and outside).1
Water can dissolve more substances than any other liquid including sulfuric acid.1
The freezing point of water lowers as the amount of salt dissolved in at increases. With average levels of salt, seawater freezes at -2 °C (28.4 °F).2
About 2000 liters of water is required to grow a day’s food for a family of four.3
To create 0,5L of beer it takes 7 liters of water.3
780 million people lack access to an improved water source.4
In just one day, 200 million work hours are consumed by women collecting water for their families.4
1/3 what the world spends on bottled water in one year could pay for projects providing water to everyone in need.4
Unsafe water kills 200 children every hour.4
It takes 35 liters of water for one egg.5
A jellyfish and a cucumber are each 95% water.5
70% of the human brain is water.5
80% of all illness in the developing world is water related.6
Up to 50% of water is lost through leaks in cities in the developing world.6
In Nairobi urban poor pay 10 times more for water than in New York.6
In some countries, less than half the population has access to clean water.7
$260 billion is the estimated annual economic loss from poor water and sanitation in developing countries.7
40 billion hours are spent collecting water in Africa alone.7
The average cost for water supplied to a home in the U.S. is about $8.00 for 1,000 liters 8
A person can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water.8
Water expands by 9% when it freezes.8
There is about the same amount of water on Earth now as there was millions of years ago.9
The length of the side of a cube which could hold the Earth’s estimated total volume of water in km = 1150.10
Children in the first 6 months of life consume seven times as much water per pound as the average American adult.11
Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water per day.11
The United States draws more than 40 billion 151 million liters of water from the Great Lakes every day—half of which is used for electrical power production.12
85% of the world population lives in the driest half of the planet.13
Agriculture accounts for ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals (up to 90% in some fast-growing economies).13
Various estimates indicate that, based on business as usual, ~3.5 planets Earth would be needed to sustain a global population achieving the current lifestyle of the average European or North American.13
Forty-for states are anticipating water shortages by 2020.14
300 tons of water are required to manufacture 1 ton of steel.15
American use 1,5 billion liters per day from toilet flushes.15
It takes about 40 liters per day to sustain a human (this figure takes into account all uses for water, like drinking, sanitation and food production).16
Each day, we also lose a little more than a cup of water (237 ml) when we exhale it.17

By 2025, water withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50 percent in developing countries and 18 percent in developed countries.18
By 2025 half the world’s people will live in countries with high water stress.19
A water-efficient dishwasher uses as little as 1 liter per cycle but hand washing dishes uses 60 liters of water.20
It takes more than twice the amount of water to produce coffee than it does tea.21
Chicken and goat are the least water intensive meats to consume.21
There have been 265 recorded incidences of water conflicts from 3000 BC to 2012.21
Hot water can freeze faster than cold water under some conditions (commonly known as the Mpemba effect).22
If the entire world’s water were fit into a 4 liter jug, the fresh water available for us would equal only about one tablespoon.23
Over 90% of the world’s supply of fresh water is located in Antarctica.23
Water regulates the Earth’s temperature.23
On average, 37l per day of your water footprint (or 14% of your indoor use) is lost to leaks.24
The average pool takes 70.000 liters of water to fill.24
It takes about 250liters water to fill a bathtub.25
Flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco, about 700 miles round-trip, could cost you more than 30.000 liters of water.25
Water use has grown at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century.26
Only 0.007 percent of the planet’s water is available to fuel and feed its 6.8 billion people.26
Three quarters of all Americans live within 10 miles of polluted water.27
A swimming pool naturally loses about 1,000 gallons (3,785 liters) a month to evaporation.28
Producing a gallon (3.79 liters) of corn ethanol consumes 170 gallons (644 liters) of water in total, from irrigation to final processing. On the other hand, the water requirement to make a gallon of regular gasoline is just five gallons (19 liters).28
40% of freshwater withdrawals in the United States are used for agriculture.29
65% of freshwater withdrawals in China are used for agriculture.29
Freshwater withdrawals for agriculture exceed 90% in many countries:
Cambodia 94%, Pakistan 94%, Vietnam 95%, Madagascar 97%, Iran 92%, Ecuador 92%.29
An acre of corn will give off 12,000 L of water per day in evaporation.31
In a 100-year period, a water molecule spends 98 years in the ocean, 20 months as ice, about 2 weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere.31
Water is the most common substance found on earth.31
In Washington state alone, glaciers provide 1.8 trillion liters of water each summer.32
Water makes up about 66 percent of the human body.33
There are no scientific studies that support the recommendation to drink 8 glasses of water per day.33
Drinking too much water can be fatal (known as water intoxication).33
There is more fresh water in the atmosphere than in all of the rivers on the planet combined.34
If all of the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere fell at once, distributed evenly, it would only cover the earth with about an inch of water.34
It takes seven and a half years for the average American residence to use the same amount of water that flows over the Niagara Falls in one second (2,5M L).34
263 rivers either cross or demarcate international political boundaries.35
Of the estimated 1.4 billion hectares of crop land worldwide, around 80 percent is rainfed and accounts for about 60 percent of global agricultural output (the other 40% of output is from irrigated crop land).36
Household leaks can waste more than 3,7 trillion liters annually nationwide. That’s equal to the annual household water use of more than 11 million homes.37
Ten percent of homes have leaks that waste 270L or more per day.37
A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 14,000 L per year.37
NASA has discovered water in the form of ice on the moon.40
A 2.6 billion year old pocket of water was discovered in a mine, 2 miles below the earth’s surface.41
Two-thirds of the world’s population is projected to face water scarcity by 2025, according to the United Nations.42
1 slice of bread requires 40 literss of water.43
1 apple requires 58liters of water.43
1 pound of chocolate requires 10.000 liters of water.43
500 sheets of paper requires 4000liters of water.43
Ground water occurs almost everywhere beneath the land surface.
The widespread occurrence of potable ground water is the reason that it is used as a source of water supply by about one-half the population of the United States.44
Hydrologists estimate, according to the National Geographic Society, U.S. groundwater reserves to be at least 33,000 trillion gallons — equal to the amount discharged into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River in the past 200 years.45
At any given moment, groundwater is 20 to 30 times greater than the amount in all the lakes, streams, and rivers of the United States.45

References:
1. http://water.epa.gov/learn/kids/drinkingwater/water_trivia_facts.cfm
2. http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/water.html
3. http://www.water.siemens.com/en/about_us/Pages/Water_Footprint.aspx
4. http://blueplanetnetwork.org/water/
5. http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5303137.doc
6. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/road-to-rio/secret-life-drinking-water
7. http://fieldnotes.unicefusa.org/infographic-world-water-crisis
8. http://water.epa.gov/learn/kids/drinkingwater/waterfactsoflife.cfm
9. http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/earth/conserve.htm
10. http://www.brita.net/blue_wonder.html
11. http://www.baycountyfl.gov/water/facts.php
12. http://aqua.wisc.edu/waterlibrary/Default.aspx?tabid=74
13. http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/water-cooperation/facts-and-figures/en/
14. http://www.campusrec.illinois.edu/goGreen/facts.html
15. http://images.fastcompany.com/magazine/154/infographic/water-world.html
16. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/run-out-of-water.htm
17. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/h2o.htm
18. http://www.ifad.org/english/water/key.htm
19. http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/fileadmin/world_water_council/documents_old/Library/WWVision/Chapter3.pdf
20. http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1204/your-daily-dose-of-water/flash.html
21. http://pacinst.org/publication/10-shocking-facts-about-worlds-water/
22. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html
23. http://www.waterwise.org.uk/pages/fun-facts.html
24. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/water-conservation-tips/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membership_r1p_us_se_w#
25. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/water-conservation-tips/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membership_r1p_us_se_w#
26. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/freshwater-crisis/
27. https://donate.nationalgeographic.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=1071
28. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-10-water-wasters/
29. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ER.H2O.FWAG.ZS
30. http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/kids/funfacts.shtml
31. http://www.cleanwaterways.org/kids/fun_facts.html
32. http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/quickfacts.html
33. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill/
34. http://www.afcec.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-130322-056.pdf
35. http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/publications/atlas/atlas_html/interagree.html
36. http://www.fao.org/ag/save-and-grow/en/5/index.html
37. http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/fixleak.html
38. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/26/nasa-curiosity-rover-mars-soil-water
39. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/question157.htm
40. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/11/13/water.moon.nasa/index.html?iref=24hours
41. http://www.livescience.com/32028-oldest-water-found-underground.html
42. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123483638138996305
43. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/embedded-water/
44. http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1186/html/gen_facts.html
45. http://www.ngwa.org/Fundamentals/use/Pages/Groundwater-facts.aspx
46. http://www.groundwater.org/get-informed/facts.html

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