Water

Water, in all of its forms, is essential to sustaining life on Earth. Although the amount of water available on the planet stays constant, it is not evenly distributed. Some areas have an abundance of the resource, while others have virtually none. Even in areas where water is plentiful, it is not necessarily usable since freshwater accounts for less than 3 percent of the water on the planet. Of that amount of freshwater, the majority is trapped in glacial ice or located in aquifers. The demand for freshwater on the planet is constantly growing due to a number of factors, including population growth, urbanization, the needs of the agricultural sector, and industrial use. Since the amount of water available locally is finite, there is constant ...