Where Fresh Water Is Stored
According to the USGS estimate, about 68.7% of Earth’s freshwater is stored in ice sheets, glaciers, and permanent snow, while about 30.1% is fresh groundwater. These are shares of freshwater reserves, not all water on the planet; soil moisture is a separate, much smaller category. Global reservoir estimates are rounded and depend on how stores are classified. [1–3]
About 69% of freshwater is in ice and 30% in fresh groundwater.
