• Question: What percentage of the earth is covered by water

    Asked by leejoradan to Arlene, David, Paul on 22 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: David McKeown

      David McKeown answered on 22 Nov 2012:

      About 70% of the earth is covered in water. 3% of that is fresh water that we can drink. The rest is saltwater in the sea.

    • Photo: Paul Higgins

      Paul Higgins answered on 22 Nov 2012:

      I can’t argue with that 🙂 Funny that our bodies are also 70% water, like the earth…

      And the fresh water available is decreasing due to climate change- there are a lot of dried up lakes in Africa these days. Drinkable water is going to be one of the big shortages over the next 100 years. We will either learn to conserve it, or spend a lot of energy on desalinisation (de-salting ocean water).

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