What approximate percentage of the Earth's water is accessible for human consumption at any given time?

No wonder our planet is often called the Blue Planet: over 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by the ocean. It seems to be a lot, but actually there is a small amount of fresh water for us to drink on the planet. The largest part of the Earth's water (97.5%) is salt, which leaves us only 2.5% as fresh water.

And still it's only a part of the sad story. Nearly 70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland; most of the remainder is present as soil moisture, or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater not accessible to human use.

Finally, only ~1% of the world's fresh water is accessible for direct human uses. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is regularly renewed by rain and snowfall, and is therefore available on a sustainable basis. So, we should use our water resources responsibly!