Question

If most of the Earth is covered with water, how can there be water shortages?

Answer 1

This is a good question.
There are many reasons. I'll tell you one.

Even though most of the world is covered in water, we can't really drink that water.
Most of the world's water is found in oceans. It's salty, and it's dirty. It's not considered a safe water source, you know?

In order to drink that water, we would need to purify it first. Take out all the salts and pollutants.
And many of the world's countries don't have access to water purification facilities.

Answer 2

to be fair, desalination (removing salts from aqueous solutions) isn't hard, and isn't the type of thing people dont know about. I mean, you can boil sea water and it is perfectly fine to drink.

The real issues are location, use, and transportation.

Answer 3

Don't forget out of the tons of water only 3% of it is non-salt water, and 2% of that is glaciers. With only 1% drinkable water, plus all the polluting we do, got it? :P

Answer 4

Salt and water distribution are the biggest problems and filter take out so much than they have to be replaced.

Answer 5

can salt get evaporated.

Answer 6

In theory, yes. But the temperature would have to be very high.

In order to evaporate, the salt would first have to be in liquid form.
And the melting point of salt is....1,474 degrees Fahrenheit.

That's hot.

Answer 7

Generally Boiling point of water is 100 degree. It is the temperature at which water starts boiling and gets evaporated. But when I look at pounds temperature of water will be normal but it gets evaporated even at 40 degree. Why

Answer 8

thank you all ( @InYourHead, @M_Vamshi_Kumar_Reddy, @agreene, @ClawTalon and @LilySwan) for giving the best answers sadly could give only one medal....