H2O-NO! - Fresh Water Problems: Crash Course Kids #33.1 - By Crash Course Kids
Transcript
| 00:09 | say you're getting ready for a hike on a hot | |
| 00:11 | summer day , you're going into the woods far away | |
| 00:13 | from home and restaurants and movie theaters and malls and | |
| 00:16 | even other people . What's one super important thing you | |
| 00:19 | should definitely pack besides the compass or a map and | |
| 00:22 | hiking boots and the first aid kit and food and | |
| 00:26 | okay , fine , there's a lot of stuff you | |
| 00:28 | should pack . But the most important thing water , | |
| 00:31 | specifically fresh water after walking a lot in the heat | |
| 00:35 | , nothing will make you feel better than some ice | |
| 00:37 | cold H 20 Why should you have to pack water | |
| 00:40 | though ? Can't you just sip some from a stream | |
| 00:42 | or river that you pass on your hike ? Not | |
| 00:44 | necessarily . We've already talked about fresh water . So | |
| 00:46 | you know what it is and that it's found in | |
| 00:48 | relatively small amounts on our planet . So sadly , | |
| 00:51 | there's no guarantee that you'd stumble across any fresh water | |
| 00:53 | on your hike , but does the small amount of | |
| 00:55 | fresh water in our hydro sphere ever change and what | |
| 00:57 | happens to plants and animals in the biosphere ? If | |
| 01:00 | the level of freshwater does change Time for a little | |
| 01:07 | refresher , you'll remember that fresh water is water that | |
| 01:10 | doesn't contain a lot of salt in it . You'll | |
| 01:12 | also remember that for a planet with a lot of | |
| 01:14 | water on it , surprisingly little of it is fresh | |
| 01:16 | water . Let's review a few freaky freshwater facts . | |
| 01:19 | Most of the water on earth is in the oceans | |
| 01:22 | . They're huge and also full of salt . In | |
| 01:24 | fact , about 97% of the water on the planet | |
| 01:27 | is salty . By contrast , freshwater is found in | |
| 01:30 | lakes , rivers , ponds , wetlands and streams . | |
| 01:33 | Only about 3% of the planet's total water supply is | |
| 01:36 | fresh water , but about 2% is locked up in | |
| 01:39 | frozen glaciers or underground where we can't get to it | |
| 01:43 | . So that means of all the fresh water that's | |
| 01:45 | on earth , less than 1% of it is actually | |
| 01:48 | accessible to us on the surface and also to all | |
| 01:50 | the plants and animals we share that surface with . | |
| 01:53 | And different ecosystems have different amounts of fresh water in | |
| 01:56 | them . For instance , a rainforest will have a | |
| 01:58 | lot more than a desert and that's okay because some | |
| 02:00 | ecosystems don't need as much as others do , but | |
| 02:04 | all ecosystems need some . So what happens to a | |
| 02:07 | single ecosystem when the amount of fresh water that's available | |
| 02:09 | in it changes ? Let's take a look at one | |
| 02:11 | of the most important sources of water in the southwestern | |
| 02:14 | United States , The Colorado River , The Colorado River | |
| 02:22 | provides water to more than 40 million people in the | |
| 02:24 | States of colorado Utah , new Mexico Arizona , Nevada | |
| 02:28 | , Wyoming and California . People use it for farming | |
| 02:31 | , drinking and growing their lawns , among other things | |
| 02:33 | . But there's a lot less water in the river | |
| 02:35 | these days than there used to be almost 100 years | |
| 02:38 | ago . In the 19 twenties , there used to | |
| 02:40 | be more than 22 trillion liters of water in the | |
| 02:43 | river . Today there's about four trillion liters less than | |
| 02:47 | there used to be . What can explain such a | |
| 02:49 | large loss of water over a relatively short period of | |
| 02:51 | time . In a word , us humans are using | |
| 02:54 | more and more of the water every year , leaving | |
| 02:57 | less of it for future generations . This line graph | |
| 03:00 | shows just how much are dependent on the river has | |
| 03:02 | grown over the years . The blue line shows how | |
| 03:05 | much water is available , starting from the 19 twenties | |
| 03:07 | into the two thousands . It's mostly going down over | |
| 03:10 | the decades except for a few upward spikes and especially | |
| 03:12 | wet years . This red line shows how much water | |
| 03:14 | we used each decade . This line has been going | |
| 03:17 | up up up until it's finally met the blue line | |
| 03:19 | on the right . Some people are worried that the | |
| 03:21 | demand for the river's water will keep surpassing the amount | |
| 03:23 | of water that's actually available . And to be honest | |
| 03:27 | , they should be worried less fresh water in a | |
| 03:29 | certain area . Doesn't just mean less water for the | |
| 03:31 | people that live there . It means less water for | |
| 03:34 | the plants and animals that live there . To the | |
| 03:36 | vaquita is a rare species of corpus that lives in | |
| 03:39 | the gulf of California at the end of the Colorado | |
| 03:41 | River . It's had to try to adapt , having | |
| 03:43 | much less fresh water in its ecosystem over the years | |
| 03:46 | , but it hasn't been doing so well Today . | |
| 03:49 | There are fewer than 100 Nikita's left in the world | |
| 03:52 | . Nikita's are just one kind of animal that live | |
| 03:54 | in or near the Colorado River , thousands of other | |
| 03:57 | fish , birds , mammals and other animals called the | |
| 04:00 | river home to . And if we take action now | |
| 04:02 | , we can keep it that way when the availability | |
| 04:05 | of fresh water in an ecosystem in this case , | |
| 04:07 | the Colorado River changes , it has a major impact | |
| 04:10 | on the humans and other animals that depend on it | |
| 04:12 | . Which brings us back to our big question , | |
| 04:15 | can they already low levels of fresh water in our | |
| 04:17 | hydro sphere change ? Yes . And when they do | |
| 04:24 | , it's not great news for the biosphere . That's | |
| 04:27 | why it's so important that we use less fresh water | |
| 04:29 | than is actually available in the world . Otherwise one | |
| 04:32 | day there will be less water than we need to | |
| 04:34 | survive . But there are lots of ways to keep | |
| 04:37 | that from happening . And luckily some super awesome humans | |
| 04:39 | have gotten together to keep our planet's freshwater levels from | |
| 04:42 | getting too out of balance more on exactly what they're | |
| 04:45 | doing and how you can help next time . |
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