Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H₂O. Its molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state, water vapor or steam.

Water covers 70.9% of the Earth's surface, and is vital for all known forms of life. On Earth, it is found mostly in oceans and other large water bodies, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation. Oceans hold 97% of surface water, glaciers and polar ice caps 2.4%, and other land surface water such as rivers, lakes and ponds 0.6%. A very small amount of the Earth's water is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products.

Water on Earth moves continually through a cycle of evaporation or transpiration (evapotranspiration), precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea. Over land, evaporation and transpiration contribute to the precipitation over land.

Clean drinking water is essential to human and other lifeforms. Access to safe drinking water has improved steadily and substantially over the last decades in almost every part of the world. There is a clear correlation between access to safe water and GDP per capita. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A recent report (November 2009) suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%. Water plays an important role in the world economy, as it functions as a solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances and facilitates industrial cooling and transportation. Approximately 70% of freshwater is consumed by agriculture.

Water is a common chemical substance, that is essential to all known forms of life. In typical usage water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has the solid state, ice, and gaseous state, water vapor. Water covers 71% of Earth's surface as well as below ground in aquifers and in the air as vapor, clouds, and precipitation.

Contents

• 1 Sourced
• 2 Unsourced
• 3 See also
• 4 External links

Sourced

• All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
  • Ecclesiastes 1:7

• Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it.
  • Psalms 65:9, Authorized Version

• Water is a very good servant, but it is a cruell maister.
  • William Bullein in Bulwarke of Defence against All Sicknesses (1562)

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Thu Aug 26 22:58:13 2010