Water in three states: liquid solid and vapor in air. Clouds are droplets of liquid condensed from water vapor.
Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage water refers only to its liquid form or state but the substance also has a solid state ice and a gaseous state water vapor or steam. Water covers 71% of the Earths surface 1. 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 and precipitation. 2 Saltwater 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 Earths water is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products. Other water is trapped in ice caps glaciers aquifers or in lakes sometimes providing fresh water for life on land.
Water moves continually through a cycle of evaporation or transpiration precipitation and runoff usually reaching the sea. Winds carry water vapor over land at the same rate as runoff into the sea about 36&Tt per year. Over land evaporation and transpiration contribute another 71&Tt per year to the precipitation of 107&Tt per year over land. Clean fresh drinking water is essential to human and other life. Access to safe drinking water has improved steadily over the last decades in almost every part of the world. 1 However some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability 3 a situation which has been called a water crisis by the United Nations. 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 percent of freshwater is consumed by agriculture. 4
