Yeeees, I was shocked as well, especially when I see plenty of water around here. I wonder how do they define fresh water. Is it drinkable? or just non-salted water? Because if the 0.5% is any fresh water (not ready to drink), that number might be even less (not that we can't treat that water).
The website includes this:
2.5% of the earth's fresh water is unavailable: locked up in glaciers, polar ice caps, atmosphere, and soil; highly polluted; or lies too far under the earth's surface to be extracted at an affordable cost.
So they consider highly polluted water as unavailable. Is it water that we can't treat anymore?
So many questions!!!!