Water

The collective mass of water found on, under, and over the surface of a planet is called hydrosphere. Earth's approximate water volume (the total water supply of the world) is 1 360 000 000 km³ (326 000 000 mi³). Of this volume:

• 1 320 000 000 km³ (316 900 000 mi³ or 97.2%) is in the oceans.
  
• 25 000 000 km³ (6 000 000 mi³ or 1.8%) is in glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets.
  
• 13 000 000 km³ (3,000,000 mi³ or 0.9%) is groundwater.
  
• 250 000 km³ (60,000 mi³ or 0.02%) is fresh water in lakes, inland seas, and rivers.
  
• 13 000 km³ (3,100 mi³ or 0.001%) is atmospheric water vapor at any given time.
  

Water is not a finite resource, but rather re-circulated as potable water in precipitation in quantities many degrees of magnitude higher than human consumption. Therefore, it is the relatively small quantity of water in reserve in the earth (about 1% of our drinking water supply, which is replenished in aquifers around every 1 to 10 years), that is a non-renewable resource, and it is, rather, the distribution of potable and irrigation water which is scarce, rather than the actual amount of it that exists on the earth.

Many countries would be willing to fight over water, as water is very scarce in a number of different areas of the world. In 1990 there were 20 nations throughout the world that were qualified as water scarce countries. Most of these countries are either located in Africa or near the Middle East, which causes even more problems because of the rapidly growing populations of these countries. As many as 15 more countries are expected to join the other water scarce countries by the year 2025. The increase in water scarcity also presents another problem, that being water quality. As water becomes increasingly difficult to come by, people in these nations will have to start drinking water of a very low quality because most of these third world countries cannot afford water management resources.

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