Earth to EPAresearch Twitter: Remember My G-R-O-U-N-D-W-A-T-E-R!

The EPAresearch Twitter tweeted this on 14 July 2011:

Thirsty? 1/5 of the world's fresh water and 80% of fresh water in N. America comes [sic] from the Great Lakes #LakeSci11 #lakesmonth

The site indicates that this was in turn retweeted by 22 others, so not only did EPAresearch's 10,904 followers receive this misinformation but so did the followers of 22 other Twitters (unless the retweets made corrections, as I did).

Here was my WaterWired Twitter response:

Incorrect - 'liquid fresh surface water'! @EPAresearch Thirsty? 1/5 of world's FW and 80% of N. America's FW are from Great Lakes #LakeSci11

I realize the EPAresearch item was undoubtedly Tweeted by some PR person, but that's no excuse. Neither is the response, "Oh, come on - you know what we meant!" I did, but did others who received this?

Puzzled by my reaction?

The EPAresearch Tweet would be correct if all Earth's freshwater occurred in lakes and streams. That's not true. The largest amount by far of Earth's fresh water occurs as 1) glaciers and ice caps (about 70%); 2) groundwater (about 30%). The rest of Earth's freshwater amounts to rounding error.So EPAresearch not only forgot about groundwater, but also glaciers and icecaps. [Note: I added this paragraph on 17 July 2011 in response to a comment.]

See this graphic from the USGS:

Am I being picky? You bet!

Note added on 19 July 2011: they acknowledged their mistake on 19 July - kudos to them!

"Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley

Comments

[Matt H]

meh. Yet another reason Twitter is lame. I don't really understand the point that either of you is trying to make.