Water Table - Where does the water you drink come from?

Your water will basically come from one of two sources, lakes or wells. Water that comes from the water in lakes and rivers is called surface water and water from wells is called groundwater. I appologise for stating the obvious, but many people have no idea where their water is coming from. It is really important to understand the map of your tap water source, because the quality of your drinking water depends on the land around it.

The water cycle is when water moves from air to land and back into the air again. The cycle consists of four main processes: evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection. The evaporation process happens when water turns into water vapor and rises up or evaporates into the sky. Condensation is when the water vapor cools high up in our atmosphere and turns back into a liquid. As each water droplet connects to more water droplets, it will get big enough and turn into a cloud. Precipitation is when a cloud dills up with too much water and all the water falls down as rain, snow, sleet and hail. The collection process is when water is collected from a lake or ocean and turns back into water vapor. Water can carry pollutants into the ocean, air and ground because it travels in a cycle.

The Water Cycle

Infact water is the greatest solvent on earth, which is why it can carry pollutants so easily. water will dissolve everything it is exposed to and will soak up the elements, that is why water makes such good tea when mixed with tea leaves!

When you put all this together, regarding the water cycle, you can see how our water gets polluted

Water is probably the most common resource used on earth. Most of this water is not fresh, infact 97% of the earths water is polluted and or salty. 2% is too far underground to reach, which leaves 1% for us to use. While many of us have access to clean water, there is over 1 billion people in the world who do not have access to clean water.

The main cause of water pollution is sewerage, chemicals from factories, fertilisers and pesticides fom farms, landfills that leak and pharmeceuticals and chemicals we throw down the drain. There are two types of water pollution: point source and non-point source. Point source pollution is when harmful materials are put into the water. Non-point source pollution is when harmful substances are indirectly put into the water through changes in the environment, for example when fertilizers are soaked up from the ground into rivers.

The Nature Conservancy has mapped where water sources are around the world, you can find outwhere your water is coming from HERE.

The Water Cycle and Pollution

97% of the water on earth is in the oceans
Only 3% of the water on earth is freshwater
About 2.4% of the water on earth is permanently frozen in glaciers and at the polar ice caps
About 1/2 of 1 % of the water on earth is groundwater
Only about 1/100 of 1% of the water on earth is in the rivers and lakes
It takes 39,090 gallons of water to make a new car, including the tires
Over 17,000,000 houses use private wells for their drinking water supply
A person can live about a month without food, but can live only about 1 week without water