Answer:
seek new trade routes to East Asia.
Explanation:
After Byzantine Empire fell in the hands of Ottomans, the trade links between Europe and East were interrupted. Therefore, Portuguese and Spanish sailors decided to find a water route to East India.
Their first idea was to sail around Africa and to reach India. That was the idea of Portuguese, while Spaniards believed that by sailing towards the west they will reach eastern shores of Asia.
mount Everest witch is 29,029 ft
The correct answer is - groundwater.
The freshwater is represented with only 3% of the total water reserves on the planet. Further more, most of the freshwater is actually frozen in the ice caps and glaciers on the poles and their close proximity, and that water accounts for around 87%. The rivers and the lakes do provide freshwater, but they only account for 1% of the total freshwater reserves, not to mention the fact that big portion of them are heavily polluted and can not be used for drinking at all.
The groundwater though, is much less polluted, is easy to extract and to use, and it accounts for around 12% of the total freshwater reserves, which makes the prime candidate for usage.