The water resources of the world are made up of sea water, underground water, ice and snow, rivers and lakes, with a total amount of 1.4 billion cubic kilometers.  Of this, sea water accounts for 97.2 percent, but it cannot be used directly for drinking or for production; water in solid forms, such as ice, snow, etc., is found mainly in the areas around the North and South Poles, where nobody lives; and the total amount of water in rivers, lakes and underground makes up only 0.6 percent of the world's water, a large amount of which is not drinkable. As a matter of fact, the drinkable fresh water is only 0.34 percent of the total fresh water of the world.

      海水、地下水、冰雪、河流、湖泊一起构成了地球的水资源，共约14亿立方千米。其中海水占97.2%，但不能直接用于人类生活与生产；冰雪等固态水主要分布在无人居住的南北极；河流、湖泊、地下水等的水总量，才占地球水总量的0.6%，其中仍有相当一部分不宜饮用。这样，实际上能为人类饮用的淡水，其总量仅仅是全球淡水储量的0.34%。

      China's average annual water resources amount to 2,812.4 billion cubic meters, ranked the third in the world and next only to Brazil and the former Soviet Union.  But because of its large population, China's per capita water resources amount to only 2,580 cubic meters, ranked the 84th place in the world.  Moreover, the water resources are not balancedly found geographically, with 90 percent of the surface water and over 70 percent of the underground water in southern provinces.  So the seventeen provinces in the north are extremely short of water.  The increasing population, development of production and expansion of cities have brought about an increasingly large gap between the demand and supply of water.

      我国年平均水资源总量为28124亿立方米，仅次于巴西和前苏联，居世界第三位。但由于我国的人口太多，人均占有水资源量和少，仅2580立方米，名列世界第84位。而且水资源地理分布还很不均匀，90%的地表水和70%以上的地下水分布在南方各省。这样，北方17个省市区极为缺水。人口与日俱增、生产发展、城市扩展，使水的供需矛盾日趋突出。

      Xinyi Translation Studio