United States Geological Survey
Water Science School — Earth’s water distribution
The standard reference quantification of where Earth’s water is held: oceans, ice caps and glaciers, groundwater, soil moisture, lakes, atmosphere, rivers and biological water, in volume and percentage terms.
Rights
- Commercial reuse
- Yes
- Redistribution
- Yes
- Derivative use
- Yes
- Attribution required
- No
- Restrictions
- Applies to material authored by US federal agencies. Third-party material carried within a federal product may be separately protected.
- Terms last checked
- 23 August 2026
Access and coverage
- Publisher
- United States Geological Survey
- Geographic coverage
- Global
- Update frequency
- static
- Formats
- html, csv
- Bulk download
- Available
- Registration required
- No
- Cost to Hydrionis
- Free
- Domains
- resources
Notes
The underlying volumetric estimates trace to Shiklomanov’s work for UNESCO. Different compilations differ by a few percent, particularly for groundwater, so Hydrionis presents the figures with their uncertainty rather than as exact constants.
What Hydrionis holds from this publisher
The publisher’s own coverage is above. This is what Hydrionis has actually taken from it, at the subjects it measures — gauges, boreholes, reservoirs or places.
12
Values held
12
Series, each one measurement at one place
12
Subjects measured
1974–1993
Period actually held, not the publisher’s span
What is measured
- Water stock · km³