Where is Earth's water located and in what forms does it exist? You can see how water is distributed by viewing these bar charts. The left-side bar shows where the water on Earth exists; about 97 percent of all water is in the oceans. The middle bar shows the distribution of that three percent of all Earth's water that is freshwater. The majority, about 69 percent, is locked up in glaciers and icecaps, mainly in Greenland and Antarctica. You might be surprised that of the remaining freshwater, almost all of it is below your feet, as ground water.

 

 

Picture of Earth showing if all Earth's water (liquid, ice, freshwater, saline) was put into a sphere it would be about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) in diameter. Diameter would be about the distance from Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, USA.Credit: Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; USGS.

Contaminated water.

People in the industrialized world generate 5 times more wastewater per person than in developing countries – but treat over 90% of the wastewater compared to only a few percent in developing countries

Below is an interesting link to the United Nations Environmental Program with some intresting information on the ongoing effort to transform wastewater from a major health and environmental hazard into a clean, safe and economically-attractive resource.

http://www.rona.unep.org/documents/news/20100322_press_release_sick_water_march_2010.pdf