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Tap water is commonly used for drinking, cooking, and washing. Indoor tap water is distributed through indoor plumbing, which has been around since antiquity but was available to very few people until the second half of the 19th century when it began to spread in popularity in what are now developed countries.
Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. These systems are what supply drinking water to populations around the globe. [1]
The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation [81] is the official United Nations mechanism tasked with monitoring progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) relating to drinking-water and sanitation (MDG 7, Target 7c), which is to: "Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access ...
The burden of polluted drinking water disproportionally effects under-represented and vulnerable populations. [11] Communities that lack these clean drinking-water services are at risk of contracting water-borne and pollution-related illnesses like Cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio. [12]
Alongside being used for drinking water, surface water is also used for irrigation, wastewater treatment, livestock, industrial uses, hydropower, and recreation. [1] For USGS water-use reports, surface water is considered freshwater when it contains less than 1,000 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of dissolved solids.
Most water in Earth's atmosphere and crust comes from saline seawater, while fresh water accounts for nearly 1% of the total. The vast bulk of the water on Earth is saline or salt water, with an average salinity of 35‰ (or 3.5%, roughly equivalent to 34 grams of salts in 1 kg of seawater), though this varies slightly according to the amount of runoff received from surrounding land.
Water extraction (also known as water withdrawal, water abstraction, and water intake) is the process of taking water from any source, either temporarily or permanently, for flood control or to obtain water for, for example, irrigation. [1] [2] The extracted water could also be used as drinking water after suitable treatment.
Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. [1] This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres: the biosphere , hydrosphere / cryosphere , atmosphere , and geosphere (or lithosphere ).