What percentage of freshwater is groundwater?

Simple answer:

(See table below for details.)

1. Oceans have over 96% of all water and so almost all of the water of Earth is surface water.

2. Not counting the oceans, most of the rest of the water on Earth is surface water, but it is almost all frozen in ice caps, glaciers and snow.

3. Not counting oceans and frozen water, most of the rest of the water is ground water, but most of that is salty.

4. Not counting salty water and frozen water, most of the fresh water on Earth is ground water. There is 50 to 100 times more fresh ground water than all the fresh water contained in lakes and rivers.

First, it should be clear that there are several types of water and giving the right name makes a difference.

Surface water is the water above ground.

Ground water is the water below ground.

Both types can be further separated into Fresh water and salt water.

All of these can be further separated into liquid water and frozen water.

Technically, groundwater is liquid water in aquifers, soil moisture, permafrost (frozen soil), water in bedrock, and geothermal water.

Water broken down by type:

The total volume of water on Earth is estimated at 1.386 billion km³ (333 million cubic miles). That is .13% of the volume of Earth.

The 1.4 billion cubic kilometers has a mass of 1.4 x 10^18 metric tons or 1.4x10^21 kilograms. Water is then 0.023 percent of the Earth's total mass.

If all the water that the Earth has were distributed evenly over the surface area of the Earth, it would be 2.7 kilometers or 9,000 feet deep.

About 97.5% of water on Earth is salt water and 2.5% fresh water.

Of the 2.5% fresh water, only 0.3% is in liquid form on the surface.

A breakdown of the various forms of water is as follows, going from the largest to the smallest.

96.5000% Oceans, Seas, bays

1.7400% Ice caps, glaciers, snow

0.9400% Saline Groundwater

0.7600% Fresh groundwater

0.0220% Ground ice and permafrost

0.0070% Fresh Lakes

0.0060% Saline Lakes

0.0010% Soil moisture

0.0010% Atmosphere

0.0008% Swamps

0.0002% Rivers

0.0001% Biological

See related links for the source of this data.