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water is where life began and why life continues, but it is also the world's most threatened essential resource. According to UN-Water, 75% of planet Earth is covered in water. 97.5% of that is ocean and 2.5% is freshwater. 70% of freshwater is divided into glaciers and ice caps and the remaining 30% into land surface water, such as rivers, lakes, ponds and groundwater. Most of the freshwater resources are either unreachable or too polluted, leaving less that 1% of the world's freshwater, or about 0.003% of all water on Earth, readily accessible for direct human use. 70% of this unpolluted freshwater is used for irrigation, 22% for industry and 8% for domestic use (See Also: Finite Freshwater). In addition to the accelerating climatic-driven threat of drought, where water sources all over the world face the threat of potentially drying up as the warming climate accelerates, water is becoming increasingly polluted every year. Water pollution affects drinking water, rivers, lakes and oceans all over the world. This consequently harms human health, wildlife and the natural environment. According to the NIEHS, water pollution is any contamination of water with chemicals or other foreign substances, such as fertilizers and pesticides from agricultural runoff, sewage and food processing waste, lead, mercury and other heavy metals, chemical wastes from industrial discharges, and chemical contamination from hazardous waste sites, that are detrimental to human, plant or animal health.
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