• Question: if the world is made of two thirds of water why are people dying from being thirsty?

    Asked by optimusgrime786 to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 19 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Most of the earth’s water is salty, which is no good for drinking because of a process called osmosis. Osmosis is where water will flow from less salty to more salty places. So if you drink seawater water will actually flow from your cells into your stomach, and you will probably be sick.

      We need to drink fresh water (that falls from the clouds), and in many parts of the world this is in short supply.

    • Photo: Sam Tazzyman

      Sam Tazzyman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      We can take the salt out of salt water via a process called “desalination” but it is very costly and not very efficient, and quite often there are better ways of getting fresh water.

    • Photo: Steven Daly

      Steven Daly answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      As as been said, most of the water on the Earth is salty, and it is simply that there is not enough fresh water for the population the world currently has.

    • Photo: Vera Weisbecker

      Vera Weisbecker answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      Also – if you’re in a dry place 100s of kms away from the next ocean, even if the ocean was fresh water it wouldn’t really help you…

    • Photo: Katie Marriott

      Katie Marriott answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      All very good points – salt and distance! Also weather and economics play a part. We have plenty of fresh water here because it rains a lot and we have the technology to purify the water. However, a lot of the coutries who struggle for water are in hot arid places where there isn’t a lot of rain fall. Therefore money is needed to dig wells and for the pumps to get the water out of the ground.

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