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Water resources
Water resources are sources of water that are useful or potentially useful to humans. It is important because it is needed for life to exist. Many uses of water include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental activities. Virtually all of these human uses require fresh water. Only 2.5% of water on the Earth is fresh water, and over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts of the world, and many more areas are expected to experience this imbalance in the near future. It is estimated that 70% of world-wide water use is for irrigation in agriculture. Climate change will have significant impacts on water resources around the world because of the close connections between the climate and hydrologic cycle. Due to the expanding human population competition for water is growing such that many of the worlds major aquifers are becoming depleted. Many pollutants threaten water supplies, but the most widespread, especially in underdeveloped countries, is the discharge of raw sewage into natural waters.
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Earth & Climate News
July 24, 2026
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July 21, 2026 Ancient sediment reveals that some of K’gari’s deepest lakes vanished around 7,500 years ago, despite unusually heavy rainfall. The surprising discovery suggests changing winds and future climate ...
July 21, 2026 China’s Chang’e-6 samples have uncovered a surprising difference between the Moon’s two hemispheres. Solar wind particles penetrated deeper into the far-side soil because Earth’s ...
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July 19, 2026 The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was likely an exceptionally rare CO chondrite from a distant region of the solar system. Its unusual chemistry suggests that planet-cooling dust and debris, ...
July 18, 2026 Scientists have found evidence that a major Cascadia earthquake could trigger a second quake on the San Andreas Fault. The discovery came from unusual sediment layers formed by underwater landslides ...
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July 17, 2026 Tiny plastic particles in drinking water may be doing more than contaminating the environment. New research suggests nanoplastics can actually help harmful bacteria survive by strengthening the slimy biofilms they form inside water systems. These ...
Latest Headlines
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July 17, 2026 A major DNA study has rewritten the koala's evolutionary story, revealing that the species suffered a dramatic population collapse about 100,000 years ago, long before humans arrived in Australia. By ...
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July 16, 2026 Scientists have identified a hidden feedback loop that may explain how Earth has regulated its climate for tens of millions of years. As sea levels rose and fell, they changed how much phosphate ...
July 15, 2026 NASA's PACE satellite captured the Black Sea glowing turquoise during its annual phytoplankton bloom. The vivid color comes from massive numbers of coccolithophores, microscopic organisms whose ...
July 14, 2026 The world's longest-running soil warming experiment has revealed an unexpected climate concern. After nearly four decades, researchers found that warming can cause microbes to break down stable soil ...
July 12, 2026 Scientists discovered that extreme deep-sea pressure squeezes valuable nutrients out of sinking organic particles, providing an unexpected food source for ocean microbes. The finding could rewrite ...
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July 11, 2026 Two striking Asian praying mantis species that have rapidly spread across Europe have now been officially classified as invasive, raising new concerns about their impact on native wildlife. Boosted ...
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