Water Trivia

Read about some water trivia:

• A "meander" is a curve or bend in a river.
• 80% of the earth's surface is water.
• The annual average precipitation in the continental United States is 30 inches. In Winston-Salem, the average, annual rainfall is 42.5 inches.
• The average American uses about 150 gallons of water a day.
• The City of Winston-Salem has 15 sub-watersheds:
  • Brushy Fork Creek
  • Fiddlers Creek
  • Little Creek Peters Creek
  • Lower Mill Creek
  • Lower Salem Creek
  • Lower Silas Creek
  • Lower South Fork of Muddy Creek
  • Middle Mill Creek
  • Middle Salem Creek
  • Muddy Creek
  • Salem Lake
  • Upper Mill Creek
  • Upper Salem Creek
  • Upper Silas Creek
• The Clean Water Act, the cornerstone of surface water protection, became law in 1972.
• Clean water is everyone's responsibility.
• Edmond Halley (of Halley's Comet fame) was the first scientist to identify the water cycle.
• The oceans contain enough salt to cover all the continents with a layer 500 feet thick.
• Of the earth's surface water, 97% is salt water; 2% is polar ice caps and glaciers; 1% is available for drinking water.
• Ogallala or High Plains aquifer, in the western United States, is one of the world's largest aquifers.
• One gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.
• There are 17 river basins in North Carolina.  Winston-Salem is located in the Yadkin-PeeDee River Basin.
• Water is the only substance on earth found naturally in three forms: liquid, solid and gas.
• Water usage in the United States has increased ten-fold since 1940.
• A watershed or river basin is the area of land from which rainfall drains to a single point.
• Wetlands provide valuable environmental functions. They keep water clean by filtering out sediment, cushion coasts from storms and floods, and provide breeding grounds for birds, fish, and mammals.

Source

Thank you to the Groundwater Foundation for some of these statistics. For more information about groundwater, please visit the Groundwater Foundation website.