What percent of the Earth's water is fresh water?

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, most of that three percent is inaccessible. Over 68 percent of the fresh water on Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, and just over 30 percent is found in ground water. Only about 0.3 percent of our fresh water is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers, and swamps.Nov 12, 2012 read more

To break the numbers down, 96.5% of all the Earth’s water is contained within the oceans as salt water, while the remaining 3.5% is freshwater lakes and frozen water locked up in glaciers and the polar ice caps. Of that fresh water, almost all of it takes the form of ice: 69% of it, to be exact. read more

All of the World's Water. Earth's freshwater. Spheres showing: (1) All water (sphere over western U.S., 860 miles in diameter) (2) Fresh liquid water in the ground, lakes, swamps, and rivers (sphere over Kentucky, 169.5 miles in diameter), and (3) Fresh-water lakes and rivers (sphere over Georgia, 34.9 miles in diameter). read more