Experts say we are not running out of water, but have serious access and distribution problems.

Water law expert Professor Poh-Ling Tan says some Aboriginal communities are only able to access fresh flows for eight hours a day, and that few Australians understand how hard it is for some communities to access water.

“[Water access] gives communities a tool to achieve what they want for themselves,” Professor Tan said in an address for the event, Water: It's Not A Privilege, part of the World Science Festival in Brisbane.

She celebrated the declaration of water access as a human right in 2010, but said there is still a long way to go.

Over 1.2 billion people lack access to adequate clean water, despite there being more than enough for everyone.

Australian Rivers Institute director Stuart Bunn said it is something most of us take for granted.

“When people turn on the tap, they're not really thinking about the journey water took before it got there,” he said at the event.

Professor Bunn said remote parts of Australia - and large parts of the world - needed cost-effective and environmental solutions to water distribution.

Andras Szollosi-Nagy, the director of UNESCO's Division of Water and secretary of the International Hydrological Programme, agreed that distribution is the issue.

The experts also warned that climate change represents a major threat to global water supplies through more flooding, drought and disease.