In Depth
Water
Great Lakes
Quick and quirky facts about the Great Lakes
Last Updated November 23, 2007
1.5 metres — How deep the water would be if Lake Huron was drained and flooded across the entire North American continent.
6 — The number of Great Lakes if you live in the United States. On March 6, 1998, former U.S. president Bill Clinton signed Senate Bill 927, which recognized Lake Champlain on the border of Vermont and New York as the sixth Great Lake.
6 quadrillion — The number of gallons of fresh water the Great Lakes contain, making up a fifth of the world's fresh surface water. Only the polar ice caps and Lake Baikal in Siberia contain more.
244,000 square kilometres — The total surface area of the Great Lakes. That's roughly the same size as the United Kingdom. The length of the Great Lakes shoreline is equal to almost 44 per cent of the circumference of the Earth, or halfway around the world.
45 million — the number of Canadians and Americans who call the Great Lakes basin home (15 million and 30 million respectively). The population along the lakes' shores is expected to double by 2025, putting additional pressure on the finite resource.
Sources:
- www.great-lakes.net
- CIA World Factbook
- Environment Canada
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and The Great Lakes: The natural history of a changing region, by Wayne Grady.
186 — the number of non-indigenous species of fish and sea creatures that live in the Great Lakes. While some of this sea life has resided in our waters since the early 1900s, most has appeared in the last 25 years. Three new species appear in the lakes every two years (or one every eight months).
800 to 1,000 — the number of years it would take for the Great Lakes to flush out all traces of pollution.
Lake Superior lives up to its name — it's larger than all the other four combined.
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- Water - How good is it? from Heatlh Canada
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- Safe Drinking Water Foundation
- Canadian Water and Wastewater Association
- Canadian Groundwater Association
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- Canadian Association For Environmental Analytical Laboratories
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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