Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential to all known forms of life.[1] 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. About 1,460 teratonnes (Tt) of water covers 71% of the Earth's surface, 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.[2] Some of the Earth's water is contained within man-made and natural objects near the Earth's surface such as water towers, animal and plant bodies, manufactured products, and food stores.

Saltwater oceans hold 97% of surface water, glaciers and polar ice caps 2.4%, and other land surface water such as rivers and lakes 0.6%. Water moves continually through a cycle of evaporation or transpiration (evapotranspiration), 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. Some water is trapped for varying periods in ice caps, glaciers, aquifers, or in lakes, sometimes providing fresh water for life on land. Clean, fresh water is essential to human and other life. In many parts of the world, it is in short supply. Many organic molecules as well as salts, sugars, acids, alkalis, and some gases (especially oxygen), are soluble in water.

Beyond the Earth, a significant quantity of water is thought to exist underground on the planet Mars, on the moons Europa and Enceladus, and on the exoplanets known as HD 189733 b[3] and HD 209458 b.[4]

Contents

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* 1 Overview of types of water

* 2 Chemical and physical properties

* 3 Distribution of water in nature

o 3.1 Water in the Universe

o 3.2 Origin and planetary effects

o 3.3 Solar distance and Earth gravity

* 4 Water on Earth

o 4.1 Water cycle

o 4.2 Fresh water storage

o 4.3 Tides

* 5 Effects on life

o 5.1 Aquatic life forms

* 6 Effects on human civilization

o 6.1 Health and pollution

o 6.2 Human uses

+ 6.2.1 Agriculture

+ 6.2.2 As a scientific standard

+ 6.2.3 For drinking

+ 6.2.4 As a solvent

+ 6.2.5 As a heat transfer fluid

+ 6.2.6 Extinguishing fires

+ 6.2.7 Chemical uses

+ 6.2.8 Recreation

+ 6.2.9 Water industry

+ 6.2.10 Industrial applications

+ 6.2.11 Food processing

* 7 Water politics and water crisis

* 8 Regulation

* 9 Religion, philosophy, and literature

* 10 See also

* 11 References

* 12 Further reading

o 12.1 Water as a natural resource

Overview of types of water

Water can appear in three phases. Water takes many different forms on Earth: water vapor and clouds in the sky; seawater and rarely icebergs in the ocean; glaciers and rivers in the mountains; and aquifers in the ground.

Water can dissolve many different substances, giving it different tastes and odours. In fact, humans and other animals have developed senses to be able to evaluate the potability of water: animals generally dislike the taste of salty sea water and the putrid swamps and favor the purer water of a mountain spring or aquifer. The taste advertised in spring water or mineral water derives from the minerals dissolved in it, as pure H2O is tasteless. As such, purity in spring and mineral water refers to purity from toxins, pollutants, and microbes.

Because of the importance of precipitation to agriculture, and to mankind in general, different names are given to its various forms:

Snowflakes by Wilson Bentley, 1902

Snowflakes by Wilson Bentley, 1902

* according phase

o solid - ice

o liquid - water, (supercooled water)

o gaseous - water vapor

* according meteorology:

o hydrometeor

+ precipitation

precipitation according moves precipitation according phase

* vertical (falling) precipitation

o rain

o freezing rain

o drizzle

o freezing drizzle

o snow

o snow pellets

o snow grains

o ice pellets

o frozen rain

o hail

o ice crystals