There is a global shortage of drinking water. Some might wonder how this could happen if seventy percent of the Earth's surface is covered in water. Most of Earth's water is unfit for human consumption. Ocean water is salty and makes up 97.5% of all the water on the planet. Fresh water makes up only 3.5% of all the water on Earth. Drinking water comes from freshwater bodies. Fresh water is quite scarce, but it is even more scarce than you might think: about seventy percent of all fresh water is frozen in the polar ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland and is unavailable 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% of the world's freshwater available to humans. It includes water in lakes, reservoirs and aquifers that are shallow enough to be exploited at an affordable cost. These freshwater sources are the only sources that are frequently replenished by rain and snowfall and are therefore renewable. At current rates of consumption, however, this supply of fresh water will not last. Pollution and contamination of freshwater sources exacerbate 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: already today the lack of drinking water is the leading cause of disease in the world. The first step is global awareness of the water crisis: governments and the citizens they govern around the world must know about this problem and be actively involved in its solution. One of the best ways to solve this problem... half paper... resources are already being documented. For example, in all corners of the world, there is growing empirical evidence of an increase in severe weather events, flooding and decreasing ice cover, which worsen the problem of water scarcity and can be attributed to climate change. Many scientific studies also show increases in the intensity, duration and extent of drought, higher atmospheric temperatures, warmer sea surface temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and decreased glaciers and snow cover. The bottom line is that the causes of climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions, will have to be minimized if people want to do as much as possible to solve the water crisis. Works Cited Water Demand Management: The Case of Zaragoza, Spain Web 25 Nov 2014 http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/swm_cities_zaragoza_2010/pdf/final_report_swm_cities.pdf