How much water is on Earth?

Did you ever wonder how much water is on Earth? Yes, the oceans cover about 71 percent of the Earth’s surface. But, volume is a concept that is hard to grasp.

The image above shows all the Earth’s water, liquid fresh water, and water in lakes and rivers.

Spheres showing:

1. All the water on, in, and above the Earth (sphere over the western U.S., 860 miles/1384.04 km in diameter).
2. Fresh liquid water in the ground, lakes, swamps, and rivers (sphere over Kentucky, 169.5 miles/272.78 km in diameter).
3. Did you even notice the tiny sphere over the U.S. state of Georgia? This is all the freshwater lakes and rivers on Earth (34.9 miles/56.17 km in diameter).

So, how much water is on Earth?

According to the info provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, the volume of the sphere that contains all of the Earth’s water sphere would be about 332,500,000 cubic miles (mi³) (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers (km³). That is a whopping 1.386 x 10¹⁸ tonnes of water! In other words, 1.386 times billions of billions of tons of water.

That’s all the water in oceans, icecaps, glaciers, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and water in the atmosphere.

In summary,

• All the waters on Earth: 332,500,000 cubic miles (mi³) (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers (km³) or 1.386 x 10¹⁸ tons of water.
• All the volume of the freshwater on Earth would be about 2,551,000 mi³ (10,633,450 km³). That’s 1.06 x 10¹⁶ tons of water. So, only about 0.7 percent of all the water on Earth is freshwater. Much of Earth’s freshwater is deep in the ground, unavailable to humans.
• The volume of the freshwater in all the lakes and rivers on Earth (available to humans) is about 22,339 mi³ (93,113 km³). That’s 9.3 x 10¹³ tons of water. So, only about 0.0067 percent of all the water on Earth is available freshwater.

Earth may be a watery planet, but, there are even more waters on some moons of our solar system.

Related: All the Earth’s water and air

Related: Where did Earth’s water come from?

Related: No! The Earth Would NOT Look Like This Without Water

Sources

• How much water is there on, in, and above the Earth? on the U.S. Geological Survey website

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M. Özgür Nevres

I am a software developer and a science enthusiast. I was graduated from the Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Computer Engineering. In the past, I worked at the Istanbul Technical University Science Center as a science instructor. I write about the planet Earth and science on this website, ourplnt.com. I am also an animal lover! I take care of stray cats & dogs. This website's all income goes directly to our furry friends. Please consider supporting me on Patreon, so I can help more animals!

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