Where is water distributed on Earth?
Earth is often called the “Blue Planet”, because of its abundance of liquid water. As we’ve already covered in Module #1, this water is distributed in the oceans, ice caps and glaciers, surface water (streams, lakes, and rivers), groundwater, soil moisture, the atmosphere, and in biomass. However, these reservoirs of Earth’s water are not static; water is constantly fluxing between them. We see this transport of water every day, for example in the form of flowing rivers, rain and snow, and groundwater springs.
Figure 5. Distribution of water between Earth’s major reservoirs
Text Alternative of Distribution of water between Earth's major reservoirs
| Type | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Oceans | 96.5 |
| Other saline water | 0.9 |
| Freshwater | 2.5 |
| Type | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Glaciers and ice caps | 68.7 |
| Groundwater | 30.1 |
| Surface/other freshwater | 1.2 |
| Type | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Ground ice and permafrost | 69 |
| Lakes | 20.9 |
| Soil moisture | 3.8 |
| Atmosphere | 3 |
| Swamps, marshes | 2.6 |
| Rivers | 0.49 |
| Living things | 0.26 |
Source: NASA Image, 1993; based on data from a chapter in Gleick, ed., 1993, "Water in Crisis"