The entire hydrosphere belongs to the water resources of the Earth, not excluding the world ocean, as well as the water of the continents. All of them are extremely important natural resources of the Earth, the protection of which must be implemented as carefully as minerals and other resources. Even given the fact that water itself is the most common substance on the planet, it is represented in different forms: gaseous, liquid and solid. The greatest importance for a person is natural fresh water, which cannot be replaced with something. Logically, sea or ground water can be filtered, thereby creating artificial fresh water, but it still does not compare to that obtained from natural sources.
Kinds
Since water exists in three states, it is divided into types:
Unfortunately, the last three points are only potential species, because despite their existence, modern man has not yet been able to fully use them. Only some settlements, which have no other methods of extraction, drown snow in buckets, receiving melted fresh water. However, on an industrial scale, such a solution will only cause disasters.
The groundwater
The most valuable water in the world is fresh water, which is extracted mainly from lakes or underground reservoirs. Its use is much wider, since the sea contains salt and several other substances that are unacceptable to most organisms. But alas, only 3% of the entire hydrosphere accounts for fresh water, two of which we cannot use on a permanent basis, since they are enclosed in glaciers. Therefore, only 1% of all the world’s waters is available to man, which we can use for life.
Glaciers solid state of water
Sources
The main sources for the extraction of water resources are natural waters, since at the moment science is not able to recreate any substitutes for the vital fluid. The main ones are:
Usage
Any water resources are primarily the main components of human life. Its use extends to everyday life and industry. If you delve into statistics, then most of the water is used for the development of agriculture (it accounts for up to 65 percent of all fresh water in the world). Another 25% is used industrially, for example, to supply factories. And about 9-10% is spent on meeting everyday human needs in the domestic sphere.
An example is the cultivation of plants. Thus, about 10-11 thousand tons of water is spent per ton of cotton fibers, and 1.5 tons per 1 ton of wheat, from which bakery products are later made. Much less is spent on the production of valuable metals, since energy is still needed there, and not water 1 ton of steel is equal to 250 tons of fresh water. Paper, in turn, is one of the most expensive objects in terms of water resources. One ton of paper is produced from 250,000 tons of water. All these indicators are just an example, but in fact, these figures increase tenfold every year.
In addition, since a person needs to drink at least 3 liters of water for life, you might think that not so many reserves go to us. But for one person who lives in a big city, on average, it takes about 4 hundred liters per day. These indicators include sewerage, water supply, fire extinguishing, vehicle washing, as well as many other household and utility services.
Fisheries, water transport all this uses water resources to the fullest, spending and not restoring them. Also, resorts, which are mostly located near water bodies, consume reserves. Because of this, the amount of fresh water is decreasing every year, and its prices are rising. It is impossible to exclude the possibility that soon, in principle, a shortage will begin, and each person will begin to think about how much water he poured into the sewer while washing dishes.
Distribution of water resources on earth
Fortunately, nature has a process called the water cycle. Thanks to him, fresh water reserves have not yet been fully spent. If such a process did not exist, then humanity would have died out long before the advent of the Internet and, in principle, technology that is available to everyone.
The hydrosphere is divided into several parts, thus, in its upper part, water is in a gaseous, liquid and solid state. Going underground, you can find groundwater. And in the atmosphere there is water vapor, which is also part of the water resources. In the liquid state, the distribution over the territory of the planet is very uneven: the main part falls on the World Ocean, which covers approximately 70% of the entire area of the globe.
Security
At present, there are only a couple of ways to protect water resources:
Pollution problem
Of the main problems, one can single out the development of agriculture and industrial production, since it is these two factors that spend the largest amount of fresh water, which has a huge price in human life. Every year, waste only grows, and people are still not ready to switch to the use of purified sea water. Pollution occurs everywhere, and the use of water resources only accelerates their own pollution, because by spending water on the work of the plant, it in turn poisons this very water.
