Deep Water Resources: Opportunities and Challenges

More than 96% of the world's freshwater (excluding snow and glaciers) is groundwater which has turned this essential resource into the most important reservoir of freshwater on the planet. Nowadays, exploitation of groundwater resources has been developed for agricultural, industrial, and drinking uses. Due to the water shortage crisis, various solutions have been proposed. Exploring and using unconventional waters such as deep waters is one of these solutions. Groundwater resources are strategic assets of a country in which deep water resources are also included. In this paper, a review of deep water resources including quantity and quality, depth, spatial distribution, and the extraction cost of these resources has been discussed.