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The straight and simple answer to this paradox is the same as the problem with money.

With so much money in the bank, why am I so broke?

Well, simply because the money is at the wrong place at the wrong time, own and accessible by any other person except myself!

According to the US Geological Survey website (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/ watercycleatmosphere.html) which in turn quoted from Gleick, P. H. (Gleick, P. H., 1996: Water resources. In Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, ed. by S. H. Schneider, Oxford University Press, New York, vol. 2, pp.817-823.), one estimate of the global distribution of water is as follows:

Global water distribution Water source in cubic miles:

Total global water: 332,500,0001,386,000,000

Total global fresh water: 8,404,00035,030,000

Total water in the Atmosphere: 3,09412,900

There is indeed plenty of water on planet Earth, even in the atmosphere, so there ought not be any shortages anywhere on Earth, but like the money problem, the challenge is not in the general availability but the local and specific availability of drinking water as influenced by distribution factors and not mere availability per se.

When needed resource are not made available at the right place, at the right time, of the right quantity, right quality and even at the right price, a perceived shortage of resources will be presented.

Drinking Water, being a resource is no exception and as a commodity, its availability is also dictated by logistical factors be it natural (rain, precipitation, rivers and wells) or man-made (pipes, pumps, filters).

It therefore does not matter if a big reservoir of drinking water exist in my neighborhood, but my plumbing is broken: a shortage in drinking water therefore technically exist at my home.

Moving away from the technicalities of drinking water shortages alluded to distribution factors, the worldwide perceived shortages of drinking water amidst the bountiful presence of water on planet Earth and the fact that fresh water is a renewable and therefore sustainable resource is a paradox worth pondering about.

The Earth's supply of fresh water is a renewable and therefore sustainable resource, provided free of charge by Nature, compliments of the Hydrological Cycle where used water are constantly recycled into fresh water by solar power from the oceans, lakes and the land on Earth to form clouds that later precipitate and return as water in various forms of precipition e.g. rain, snow, hailstones etc.

So scientifically, ecologically and

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