Water is the basis of all organic life (most plants, animals and humans) on earth. A total of 71% of the earth's surface consists of water (H2O), made up of the elements hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O). The planet's water surface area is 520 million square kilometres. The water reserves amount to around 1.4 billion km³, which corresponds to a cube with an edge length of 1,120 km. The vast majority of this, 97%, is salt water in the world's oceans. At 48 million km³, fresh water accounts for only 3% and 68.7% is bound as ice at the poles, glaciers and permafrost soils. The groundwater makes up 30.1% and the freshwatersurface water only 0.3%. The latter consists of lakes (87%), swamps (11%) and rivers (2%).
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