Nicole Hancock January 1, 2017 Facts and Statistics: Did You Know? Nicole Hancock January 1, 2017 About 70 percent of the earth is water, but only 2.5 percent of that is freshwater. Of the freshwater, 68.9 percent is in the form of glaciers and snow cover, 30.8 percent is groundwater, and about 0.3 percent is in lakes and rivers.