Water facts
Body
- Your body is made up of two-thirds water
- Your bones are one third water
- Your brain is more than three-quarters water
- We need water in under a week or we die, whereas we can live without food for up to two months
- The body uses water in many ways:
- It regulates body temperature
- It prevents salt in the body from building up
- It carries food into the body organs
- It moves waste products out
Homes
- We use about 100,000 litres of water in our homes each year.
- A bath uses about 80 litres of water
- Washing machines use an average of 100 litres a cycle
- Watering the garden with a sprinkler uses 1,000 litres an hour.
World
- 97% of the world’s water is held in the oceans
- 2% is frozen in the polar ice caps
- Just 1% provides the water we use
- This tiny percentage includes all the lakes and rivers, the water in the atmosphere and the water in the ground
- In the developed world, it is common for each person to use 160 litres of water every day
- In the third world, 10 litres is more usual, with people having to walk many miles each day to carry water home.
- All the rivers in the world only contain, at any one time, enough water to supply man’s needs for about 10 days.
Industry
- Industry uses water for mining, in factories and power stations.
- About a quarter of all the water used in the world is in industry.
- Without the electricity generated with water, there would be no manufacturing.
