Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally taking place fluid or icy water including reduced focus of liquified salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes salt water and briny water, however it does consist of non-salty mineral-rich waters, such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water might include icy and meltwater in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, snowfields and icebergs, all-natural precipitations such as rainfall, snowfall, hail/sleet and graupel, and surface area overflows that form inland bodies of water such as wetlands, fish ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, as well as groundwater included in aquifers, subterranean rivers and lakes. Water is crucial to the survival of all living organisms. Many organisms can grow on seawater, yet the wonderful majority of vascular plants and most insects, amphibians, reptiles, animals and birds require fresh water to endure. Fresh water is the water source that is of one of the most and prompt use to people. Fresh water is not always potable water, that is, water secure to consume alcohol by people. Much of the earth's fresh water (externally and groundwater) is to a considerable degree unsuitable for human consumption without therapy. Fresh water can quickly become polluted by human tasks or because of normally taking place procedures, such as erosion. Fresh water comprises less than 3% of the world's water sources, and simply 1% of that is conveniently available. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen in Antarctica. Just 3% of it is removed for human intake. Agriculture makes use of roughly 2 thirds of all fresh water extracted from the environment. Fresh water is an eco-friendly and variable, but limited natural resource. Fresh water is restored through the procedure of the natural water cycle, in which water from seas, lakes, woodlands, land, rivers and storage tanks evaporates, forms clouds, and returns inland as rainfall. Locally, nonetheless, if even more fresh water is taken in via human tasks than is normally brought back, this may result in minimized fresh water schedule (or water scarcity) from surface area and below ground resources and can cause major damage to surrounding and linked atmospheres. Water pollution also decreases the availability of fresh water. Where readily available water sources are scarce, human beings have created technologies like desalination and wastewater reusing to extend the available supply even more. However, given the high expense (both capital and running costs) and - particularly for desalination - power needs, those continue to be primarily specific niche applications. A non-sustainable alternative is using supposed "fossil water" from underground aquifers. As several of those aquifers formed thousands of thousands or perhaps millions of years ago when regional climates were wetter (e. g. from one of the Green Sahara durations) and are not substantially renewed under present weather problems - a minimum of contrasted to drawdown, these aquifers develop essentially non-renewable sources similar to peat or lignite, which are also continually created in the current age but orders of size slower than they are extracted.
.