Freshwater in a River

Freshwater Facts for Kids

This web page contains freshwater facts for kids and is an excellent resource for anyone of any age looking to learn about this core source of drinking water. Our goal is to provide you with accurate, up to date facts about freshwater. In addition to facts about freshwater, we provide additional resources to help you with your research on this type of water.

The freshwater facts below will help you learn about the vital role freshwater plays in humans, how freshwater is created, how freshwater supports the water cycle and other freshwater related facts. We hope these freshwater facts are interesting and help you learn more about this type of water.

If any of the below freshwater facts are inaccurate, please contact us and let us know.


20 Freshwater Facts for Kids

  1. Freshwater is naturally occurring water found on the planet Earth.
  2. Freshwater is created by the Earth’s water cycle.
  3. Freshwater is defined as water with low concentrations of dissolved salts.
  4. Freshwater is found in rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, ice (sheets, caps and glaciers) and aquifers.
  5. Freshwater sources are home to thousands of different plant and animal species.
  6. Freshwater is extremely important to humans and is considered a vital resource.
  7. The human body can survive weeks without feed, but only a few days without freshwater.
  8. Water covers around 71% of the Earth’s surface, but only a small portion of that water is freshwater.
  9. Only 2.5% of all the water on our planet is freshwater and only 0.3% of that is available on the surface.
  10. 69.6% of all the freshwater on the planet Earth is in the form of snow and ice.
  11. 30.1% of all the freshwater on the planet Earth is groundwater found underneath the surface.
  12. The remaining 0.3% of freshwater on the planet Earth is found in lakes, rivers, swamps and the atmosphere.
  13. Most of the freshwater on the planet Earth is in trapped in Antarctic ice sheets.
  14. The water cycle creates freshwater by evaporating water from the oceans (seawater), which then later falls back to Earth’s surface as precipitation, like rain or snow.
  15. Humans can convert seawater into freshwater using desalination.
  16. The freshwater that comes out of your sink’s facet is called tap water.
  17. Most of the freshwater used by humans goes to agricultural sector.
  18. The biggest threat to freshwater reservoirs is pollution.
  19. The main cause of water pollution is human activities.
  20. The pollution of freshwater sources reduces the amount of drinking water available to humans.

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Additional Resources on Freshwater