Why doesnt the world run out of water?

Question

let me explain my question...water is bottled up into water bottles all over the world, supermarkets and other stores probably have like millions of bottles of water. then when we drink it, our body uses it...so with us useing so much water...why doesnt the world run out?

Answer 1

ALL WATER RECYCLES.

References:

Evaporation

Condensation

Precipitation

Sound Familiar?

There is presently about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 Kilograms of water on our planet.  The same amount of liters, approximately.

Lets say, there are 4,000,000,000 people, OK?

Just a little math shows that there are 10,000,000,000 liters of water per person on the planet.  JUST AN APPROXIMATION, OK?'

That can be compared to the volume of water flowing over the Niagara Falls for a half an hour!!!!  Approx. 5,720,000 liters per second.



HOWEVER, EVENTUALLY WE WILL RUN OUT OF WATER.

Millions of gallons of water "wander" out of our atmosphere every year, never to return.

IT SIMPLY DRIFTS OFF INTO SPACE.

A COMET COULD SOLVE THAT PROBLEM, THOUGH, BUT WE PROBABLY WOULD NOT LIVE TO SEE IT.

Does this help?

Answer 2

The world doesn't run out of water because it is recycled. Even if our body uses it, we pee it out and it goes to a sewer and then a water treatment center and that is one way water is recycled.

Here are some other ways about how water is reusable.

Precipitation - is condensed water vapor that falls to the Earth's surface. Most precipitation occurs as rain, but also includes snow, hail, fog drip, graupel, and sleet. Approximately 505,000 km of water fall as precipitation each year, 398,000 km of it over the oceans.

Canopy interception - is the precipitation that is intercepted by plant foliage and eventually evaporates back to the atmosphere rather than falling to the ground.

Snowmelt - refers to the runoff produced by melting snow.

Runoff - includes the variety of ways by which water moves across the land. This includes both surface runoff and channel runoff. As it flows, the water may infiltrate into the ground, evaporate into the air, become stored in lakes or reservoirs, or be extracted for agricultural or other human uses.

Infiltration - is the flow of water from the ground surface into the ground. Once infiltrated, the water becomes soil moisture or groundwater.

Subsurface Flow - is the flow of water underground, in the vadose zone and aquifers. Subsurface water may return to the surface (eg. as a spring or by being pumped) or eventually seep into the oceans. Water returns to the land surface at lower elevation than where it infiltrated, under the force of gravity or gravity induced pressures. Groundwater tends to move slowly, and is replenished slowly, so it can remain in aquifers for thousands of years.

Evaporation - is the transformation of water from liquid to gas phases as it moves from the ground or bodies of water into the overlying atmosphere. The source of energy for evaporation is primarily solar radiation. Evaporation often implicitly includes transpiration from plants, though together they are specifically referred to as evapotranspiration. Total annual evapotranspiration amounts to approximately 505,000 km of water, 434,000 km of which evaporates from the oceans

Sublimation - is the state change directly from solid water (snow or ice) to water vapor.

Advection-  is the movement of water, in solid, liquid, or vapour states and it is through the atmosphere. Without advection, water that evaporated over the oceans could not precipitate over land.

Condensation -  is the transformation of water vapour to liquid water droplets in the air, producing clouds and fog.

So, that means the world won't run out of water is because of the water cycles.

Answer 3

We never actually use up the water.  We are drinking the same water George washington bathed in.  You pee it out, it gets purified, and then put in someone else's body.

Plants don't make the water disappear.  They just move it around.  The sun will cause water they hold to evaporate.  Then it is returned to earth via precipitation.

Answer 4

There is the same amount of water on the earth now, as there was 10,000 years ago. It doesn't leave the planet. When any animal (to include humans) drinks water, it goes through our systems and is eventually returned to the environment by either salivation, respiration, urination, or perspiration.

  Plants undergo the same basic process as animals. They absorb the water from their enviroment, and eventually recycle it back. Both plants and animals retain some of the water for their entire lives, but when they finally break down that water is released.

    Their is actually a small amount of water loss that has occured since the induction of the space program. Whenever an astronaut evacuates waste from the space ship, the water in their f***s or urine is released into space and never returns to Earth. The amount that is lost is extremely minimal however.

Answer 5

Water we drink is recycled into the atmosphere and the ground in our urine, breath, faeces etc.  Same for plants - the water they take up is recycled by transpiration, then when they die they rot and the water returns to the earth.  The amount of water that we use is very small compared with the volume in the oceans and the atmosphere.  Inthe longest term the earth may well dry out like Mars due to losses to the solar wind, but it will not be in our lifetime.

Answer 6

the answer is kinda gross, but wen we urinate, the liquid evaporates, and becomes rain, and we drink the same water again and again. dont worry, before coming down, the water gets filtered naturally.

Answer 7

Exactly what the two lovely girls above me said. The world never runs out of water because it simply can't. Water comes from the ocean, and the ocean extends deep, deep down, possibly billions and billions of miles downward. Our urine gets purified in the water, and it is used over and over again, without the color or the bacteria included inside of it. But that doesn't mean we should start wasting water.

Answer 8

After all humans, animals, plants absorb water it is given back to the environment.  For humans, the water we drink is released from our bodies through urination, perspiration, and respiration.  Sweating and breathing allows water to be directly evaporated.  urine obviously goes into city sewers.  In more developed areas, sewage is filtered before water returns to bodies of water. In other cases, unsanitary sewage is dumped directly into bodies of water.  Once in lakes and rivers, the water evaporates (becomes water vapor) and collects as clouds until it rains.  Water returns to the ground and is collected to be used for drinking once it has been purified again.

Answer 9

Because we slowly return the water we use to the planet. We excrete water vapour through our breath, sweat and urine.

However, Earth loses water continuously from the atmosphere due to the solar wind.

Answer 10

The answer is very simple:  water is not leaving the earth.  It always stays here, mostly in the oceans.

The problem is the amount of available fresh water.  This is a scarce resource in many areas of the world, and it is becoming a bigger problem as the population of humans rises.  Ignoring desalination, the amount of freshwater is determined by the evaporation rate of water from the oceans primarily.  Its availability is determined by the storage mechanism of the fresh water, e.g., underground aquifers, lakes, swamps, ice and snow.  The other determinant of its availability is the rate at which the fresh water is withdrawn from these stores.  Areas where water is being removed from aquifers faster than it is being replaced are in serious trouble.

Answer 11

There are places that do suffer from chronic water shortages, like the Middle East. We tend to think of them fighting over oil or religion, but it also is about water.

Here, we "recycle" water, it comes out of us, into the sewage system, and is cleaned up a bit and evaporates and goes around again. The problem is when we take medications that don't get broken down in our bodies or in water, then our water is contaminated. Polluted water is certainly a growing problem.

I don't like plastic bottled water, it tastes plastic to me! Then, the plastic fills up our landfills too. Too bad we can't just drink from streams!!