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General considerations » Occurrence

Within the global hydrologic cycle, freshwater lakes play a very small quantitative role, constituting only about 0.009 percent of all free water, which amounts to less than 0.4 percent of all continental fresh water. Saline lakes and inland seas contain another 0.0075 percent of all free water. Freshwater lakes, however, contain well over 98 percent of the important surface waters available for use. Apart from that contained in saline bodies, most other continental waters are tied up in glaciers and ice sheets and the remainder is in groundwater.

Four-fifths of the 125,000 cubic kilometres (30,000 cubic miles) of lake waters occur in a small number of lakes, perhaps 40 in all. Among the largest are Lake Baikal, in Central Asia, containing about 23,000 cubic kilometres (5,500 cubic miles) of water; Lake Tanganyika (19,000 cubic kilometres [4,600 cubic miles]), in eastern Africa; and Lake Superior (12,000 cubic kilometres [2,900 cubic miles]), one of the Great Lakes of North America. The Great Lakes contain a total of about 25,000 cubic kilometres (6,000 cubic miles) of water and, together with other North American lakes larger than 10 cubic kilometres (2 cubic miles), constitute about one-fourth of the world’s lake waters. The Caspian Sea, though not considered a lake by some hydrologists, is the world’s largest inland sea. Located in Central Asia, the Caspian Sea has an area of about 386,000 square kilometres (149,000 square miles).

Although lakes are to be found throughout the world, the continents of North America, Africa, and Asia contain about 70 percent of the total lake water, the other continents being less generously endowed. A fourth of the total volume of lake water is spread throughout the world in uncounted numbers of small lakes. Anyone who has flown over much of the Canadian plains area cannot help but be struck by the seemingly endless skein of lakes and ponds covering the landscape below. Though the total volume of water involved is comparatively small, the surface area of lake water is substantial. The total surface area of all Canadian lakes has been estimated to exceed the total surface area of the province of Alberta. The U.S. state of Alaska has more than 3,000,000 lakes with surface areas greater than 8 hectares (20 acres).

The larger, deeper lakes are a significant factor within the cycle of water—from rain to surface water, ice, soil moisture, or groundwater and thence to water vapour. These lakes receive the drainage from vast tracts of land, store it, pass it on seaward, or lose it to the atmosphere by evaporation. On a local basis, even the smaller lakes play an important hydrologic role. The relatively high ratio of exposed surface area to the total water volume of these lakes accentuates their effectiveness as evaporators. In some cases the efficiency of lakes in losing water to the atmosphere is locally undesirable, because of public and industrial requirements for lake water. A striking example of this condition is the Aral Sea, located in Central Asia. Although it is still one of the world’s largest bodies of inland water, in the second half of the 20th century its area was reduced by two-fifths and its mean surface level had dropped by more than 12 metres (40 feet), as a result primarily of the diversion of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers for irrigating adjoining fields. In some basins (e.g., the Chad basin in Africa), lakes are the terrestrial end point of the hydrologic cycle. With no outflow downstream toward the oceans, these closed lakes swell or recede according to the balance of local hydrologic conditions.

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