The Looming Water Crisis Earth is the blue planet with water one of the most plentiful natural substances in its environment. However, more than 98 percent of the world's water is salt water and we depend for our basic vital needs on freshwater.
Most freshwater is locked in the polar ice caps.
Less than 1 percent of the earth's freshwater is accessible in lakes, rivers, and groundwater aquifers. That vital 1 percent of available freshwater is constantly in motion, either flowing in rivers, evaporating and moving around the globe as water vapor, falling from the sky as rain or snow, or filtering slowly through the earth to emerge somewhere else. It is a renewable resource on which we all completely depend. It is the genesis and continuing source of all life on earth. The most accessible water is that which flows in river channels or is stored in freshwater lakes and reservoirs.