r o m sound to sea 



Water, Water Everywhere 



What is the most distinguishing 

 feature about our coastal environ- 

 ment? 



Water. The salty wet stuff is 

 everywhere — in estuaries, creeks, 

 river mouths, bays and, of course, the 

 ocean. 



Because water is so seemingly 

 abundant along our shorelines, we 

 don't think much about it. But here 

 are some startling facts about one of 

 life's necessities. 



♦ If Earth were the size of an egg, 

 the total volume of water would be 

 the equivalent of one drop. Of this 

 total, only about one-third of 1 

 percent is actually available to 

 humans as fresh water for drinking 

 and irrigating (the water in lakes, 

 rivers and the accessible water table 

 below ground). 



♦ Earth's total volume of water, 

 some 1.36 billion cubic kilometers, 

 would cover the globe to a height of 

 2.7 kilometers (1.6 miles) if spread 

 evenly above its surface. But more 

 than 97 percent is seawater, 2 percent 

 is locked in ice caps and glaciers, and 

 a large portion of the remaining 1 

 percent lies too far underground to 

 exploit. 



♦ More than three-quarters of the 

 fresh water on the earth's surface is 

 frozen in the Antarctic ice cap. 



♦ The hydrologic cycle, the 

 circulation of water on and below the 

 earth's surface and in the atmosphere, 

 uses more energy in a day than 

 humankind has generated throughout 

 history. 



♦ At any one time, only about 

 .005 percent of the total water supply 

 is moving through the hydrologic 

 cycle. A drop of water spends about 

 nine days in the air as vapor; once it 

 condenses and falls as precipitation, it 

 may remain in a glacier for 40 years, 



in a lake for 100 years or in the 

 ground for 200 to 10,000 years. A 

 water molecule may float in the ocean 

 for 40,000 years before being cycled, 

 but eventually every drop of water on 

 Earth is moved through the hydro- 

 logic cycle. 



♦ Today, 26 countries, home to 

 232 million people, are water-scarce. 

 They have less than 723 gallons of 

 water per person per day. U.S. 

 residents use, directly and indirectly 

 through the manufacture of products 

 and growth of foods, 1 ,840 gallons per 

 person per day. Many of these water- 

 deficient countries have very high 

 population growth rates. 



♦ Africa has the largest number of 

 water-scarce countries — 1 1 in all by 

 the end of this decade. By the year 

 2000, the total number of Africans 

 living in water-scarce countries will 

 climb to 300 million, a third of the 

 continent's projected population. 



♦ Almost every organism depends 

 on water for more than 50 percent of 

 its body weight. The average amount 

 of water in the human body is 65 

 percent. 



♦ The average human has about 

 50 quarts of water in his or her body. 

 Most of this water is found between 

 the cells, bathing and lubricating them. 

 The wettest part of the body, blood, is 

 83 percent water; the driest, tooth 

 enamel, is 2 percent. 



♦ So vast is the world ocean that 

 one of its regions, the Pacific Ocean, 

 is 25 percent larger than all of the land 

 surface of the world combined. 



♦ The Amazon, the largest river in 

 the world, discharges 7.06 million 

 cubic feet of water per second. Its 

 volume nearly equals that of all the 

 other largest rivers combined. 



♦ Russia's Lake Baikal is the 

 oldest of all freshwater lakes (about 30 

 million years), the deepest (5,712 feet) 

 and the greatest in volume (812 billion 

 cubic feet). It supports the highest 

 proportion (60 percent) of species that 

 occur nowhere else on Earth. 



Sources: 



Cousteau, Jacques- Yves. 1980. The 

 Cousteau Almanac: An Inventory of 

 Life on Our Water Planet. Garden 

 City, NY: Doubleday & Company 

 Inc. 



Hollender, Jeffrey. 1990. How to 

 Make The World a Better Place: A 

 Guide to Doing Good. New York: 

 Quill William Morrow. 



Leopold, Luna B., Kenneth S. Davis 

 and the editors of Life. 1966. Water. 

 New York: Time Inc. 



Postel, Sandra. 1992. Last Oasis: 

 Facing Water Scarcity. New York: 

 W.W. Norton & Company. 



COASTWATCH 21 



