There is a global shortage of drinking water. One might wonder how this can happen if seventy percent of the Earth's surface is covered in water. Most of the water on Earth is unfit for human consumption. Ocean water is salt water, which makes up 97.5% of all water on the planet. Fresh water makes up only 3.5% of all water on Earth. Drinking water comes from fresh water bodies. Fresh water is quite rare, but it's even rarer than you might think: about seventy percent of all fresh water is frozen in the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland and is not not accessible to humans. Most of the remainder is present as soil moisture or is found in deep underground aquifers as groundwater. It is not economically feasible to extract this waste for use as drinking water. This leaves less than 1 percent of the world's fresh water available for humans. This includes water found in lakes, reservoirs, and groundwater shallow enough to be exploited at an affordable cost. These freshwater sources are the only sources that are frequently replenished by rain and snow and are therefore renewable. However, at the current rate of consumption, this supply of fresh water will not last. Pollution and contamination of freshwater sources exacerbates the problem, further reducing the amount of freshwater available for human consumption. If man wants to survive in the near future, something must be done: lack of drinking water is already the leading cause of disease in the world today. The first step is global awareness of the water crisis: governments and the citizens they govern around the world must be informed about this problem and actively participate in solving it. One of the best ways to solve this...... middle of paper ...... resources are already documented. For example, around the world there is growing empirical evidence of an increase in extreme weather events, flooding, and decreasing ice cover, all of which are exacerbating the problem of water shortages and can be attributed to climate change. Many scientific studies also show an increase in the intensity, duration and extent of droughts, higher atmospheric temperatures, warmer sea surface temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns and a decrease glaciers and snow cover. The bottom line is that the causes of climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions, will need to be minimized if people are to do as much as possible to solve the water crisis.Works CitedWater Demand Management: the case of Zaragoza, Spain Web November 25, 2014http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/swm_cities_zaragoza_2010/pdf/final_report_swm_cities.pdf