How Much Land Is There on Earth?
For people? For nature?, 3(2): 6. • How will climate change affect taiga underlain by permafrost?, 5(2): 33. • Ice and fire storms: The Kyoto deal [Editor’s Notebook], 7(4): i. • International Coral Reef Symposium [Biodiversity reports], 6(3): 25. • Lamp shells, phylum Brachiopoda [Portrait of Biodiversity], 8(2): 14. • The looming threat to the fair sharing of benefits: What can be done to stop it?, 7(1): 32. • Marine biodiversity workshop on systematics and databases of tropical Pacific Islands, 4(4): 25. • The panorama of life [The Last Word], 8(4): 31. • Patenting human genes, 6(2): IFC Preserving wood, and biodiversity, 4(2): 22. • Paths to ecoforestry [Editor’s Notebook], 7(2): i. • Roots of the Earth, 3(2): 25. • Slippery fish and boat efficiency, 3(3): 29. • Tools for conserving biodiversity: Inventories, Biosystematics, Museums, TAP, RAP, GAP, ETAP, and ATI, 4(2): 16. • Vast soil fungal networks sustain forests. Is the hidden tree-fungus partnership in crisis?, 3(1): 32. • Wha
Lakes, rivers, oceans and all of the other bodies of water and ice on earth make up an area called the hydrosphere. The waters of the hydrosphere are important to man and plants since they need water to live. Plants also use the water to make food, and then they are eaten by man and animals. Large bodies of water also help to control the earth’s weather and climate. About 70 percent of the earth’s surface is water, which means that only about 30 percent is land. The solid part of the earth that is out of water covers about 57,280,000 square miles. In square kilometers, that’s 148,350,000. Land comes in all types of material including rocks, sand, minerals and soil. And it comes in a wide variety of shapes, too, including continents, plains, plateaus, hills, mountains, valleys, mesas, canyons and buttes. A geographer will think of the land as a specific region. The economist will think of it as the natural wealth of the earth from which all good things are produced. And the farmer will
