Under the ocean floor, the researchers said, there are huge reserves of fresh water that will be enough to support future generations.
Scientists from Australia said they were able to find about five hundred thousand cubic meters of fresh water under the seabed on the continental shelf off the coast of China, Australia, South Africa and North America. It is worth noting that the report of the discovery came shortly after the publication of a United Nations report that reported a doubling of water consumption over the past century.
According to the study's lead author Vincent Post of Flinders University, the amount of discovered water resources is almost a hundred times the amount of water that has been extracted from the earth's surface since 1900. The amount of fresh water on the planet is rapidly declining, so finding new sources near the coastline of the continents is very interesting.
According to experts, it became possible to develop different options to reduce the effects of drought and lack of fresh water on the continents. UN experts talk about doubling the consumption of fresh water in connection with the need to irrigate fields. It is also actively used in other branches of agriculture.
It is noted that about 40% of the world's population is already experiencing a shortage of fresh water. According to UN experts, by 2030, about 47% will exist in such conditions.
According to Post, their discovery is based on studies of the seabed in coastal areas, which were carried out for geological exploration or scientific purposes.
The scientist noted that after combining these data, it turned out that the reserves of fresh water under the ocean floor are the norm, and not some kind of anomaly. Deposits have been formed in the past for hundreds of thousands of years. Then the level of the world's oceans was much lower, so precipitation fell in the areas that are now hidden by the ocean.
According to scientists, these areas went under water about 20 thousand years ago. It was during this period that the polar ice caps began to melt. The aquifers have survived due to protective layers of sedimentary rocks and clay.
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According to Port, much less money will be spent on the extraction of water from such "storage facilities" than on the desalination of sea water. But this valuable resource will become available only after the sea level drops. And this can only happen in the distant future.