The Great Lakes and their connecting rivers and channels make up the largest fresh surface water system in the world . In fact, they’re so big that astronauts can see them from the moon! ... That’s about 22 percent of the world’s fresh surface water supply and about 90 percent of the United States’ supply.
What Makes the Great Lakes valuable?
The Great Lakes are important sources of drinking water, irrigation, transportation, and recreation opportunities such as fishing, hunting, boating, and wildlife watching. The Great Lakes are a critical component of the regional economy on both sides of the border.
Why are the Great Lakes famous?
Technically the Great Lakes hold one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. ... One reason why the Great Lakes are so important is they harbor 20 percent of all the liquid water on Earth’s surface . All the more reason to keep them pollution-free.
What are 3 benefits of the Great Lakes?
The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River have always been at the heart of Ontario’s economy. They provide numerous jobs and other economic benefits around transportation (shipping), commercial and sport fishing, food processing, recreation, science and engineering.
Why the Great Lakes are better than the ocean?
There are no hurricanes, tsunamis, or typhoons...
No ocean = no major earthquakes. ... Also no hurricanes, no typhoons, and no cyclones, because those too are the ocean’s burden. The Great Lakes region gets high windstorms and the occasional tiny tornado , but even then it’s certainly not Kansas.
Are there sharks in the Great Lakes?
The only sharks in the Great Lakes region can be found behind glass in an aquarium . ... “There may be one kind of shark that could survive — some of the time — in the Great Lakes,” said Amber Peters, an assistant professor specializing in Marine Ecology in Michigan State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.
What lives at the bottom of the Great Lakes?
The organisms living on the bottom in shallow waters are the same kinds of snails, clams, worms, mayflies, and caddisflies found in most small lakes.
What is the cleanest Great lake?
“And this was really profound, because if anyone’s been in the Great Lakes for years, you recognize that Lake Superior is kind of always held as the clearest, most pristine lake of all five Great Lakes.” For the study, scientists analyzed satellite images captured between 1998 and 2012.
What country owns the Great Lakes?
The water in the Great Lakes is owned by the general public according to the Public Trust Doctrine. The Public Trust Doctrine is an international legal theory – it applies in both Canada and the United States, so it applies to the entirety of the Great Lakes.
Do the Great Lakes have tides?
True tides—changes in water level caused by the gravitational forces of the sun and moon—do occur in a semi-diurnal (twice daily) pattern on the Great Lakes. ... Consequently, the Great Lakes are considered to be non-tidal .
Can you drink water from the Great Lakes?
The Great Lakes are an abundant source of fresh drinking water ; with proper treatment, that water is safe to enjoy. At Efilters.net, our experts provide high-quality water filtration systems for your home or business.
Who gets drinking water from the Great Lakes?
The Great Lakes span 4,530 miles 1 of coast and account for 21 percent of the world’s freshwater. More than 30 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water—10 percent of the U.S. population and 30 percent of the Canadian population.
Are the Great Lakes healthy?
The overall condition of the Great Lakes has been assessed as “ fair and unchanging ” in the 2019 State of the Great Lakes joint report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environmental and Climate Change Canada, published on June 3.
Is sea better than lake?
Seas are undoubtedly deeper as compared to lakes . It is a continuous stretch of salt water. There’s an exemption to this definition however because a sea can also be a landlocked (like a lake) immense body of saline (salty) water which doesn’t have an outlet towards an ocean. ... Lakes are enclosed by a body of land.
Why is lake Michigan not an ocean?
This is not ocean. ... These lakes, though, like the oceans but unlike most other lakes, have no outflow . In the Great Lakes, a water molecule and its salts do not stay put for long—only about 200 years— before traveling from lake to lake and then through the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic.
What would happen if the Great Lakes didn’t exist?
Without Lake Superior, areas near the lake would see far less snow each winter , and the distribution of snow in the central and eastern regions around the lake would be far different. The effects would not be limited to snow.
