The global shortage of fresh water is so dramatic that the United Nations University calls the world a “water bankruptcy.” In a new report, it writes that in large parts of the planet people consumed more water than rainfall and snowmelt replenish. In doing so, they deplete the “saved” groundwater, which in some places takes thousands of years to refill.
“Our current account, surface water, is empty,” said the report author Kaveh Madani, who conducts research at the United Nations University. “The savings book we inherited from our ancestors—groundwater, glaciers, and so on—also is exhausted.” Globally, signs of the “water bankruptcy” are visible.
According to the UN report, three-quarters of the world’s population live in regions without reliable year-round access to water. Four billion people experience severe water scarcity for at least one month. Two billion people live on soils that are sinking because groundwater-bearing rock layers collapse, the so-called aquifers.
To call it a water crisis is no longer enough, the report states. “Crises” are something to endure in the short term in order to return to normal afterward. Yet “the long-term use of water has exceeded renewable inflows, which has led to irreparable damage.” Water supply and the functioning of ecosystems cannot be restored everywhere.
Regional Differences Remain Important
“The inadequate global water security is no longer an exceptional condition in many regions, but a steadily worsening chronic state,” said Rike Becker, a researcher at Imperial College London, to the Science Media Center (SMC). However, this should “not trigger a sense of resignation and failure.” National and local approaches often offer the most effective and fastest solutions because they are tailored to regional needs.
Thorsten Wagener from the University of Potsdam also emphasized to the SMC that the term “water insolvency” is indeed a good summary of the situation, but the large regional differences are important. “It is difficult to describe the topic of water with a single global average,” he said.
Germany, for example, generally has more water supply than we use. In regions like Brandenburg, however, there are recurring water problems that, “in dry years, can spread to all of Germany or even Europe.”
Becker sees German water consumption critically for another reason as well, because it largely takes place abroad. More than 80 percent of German water consumption is “imported” water from countries such as India, Pakistan, and Egypt.
What this means is that goods and food are produced abroad under excessive water use and then sold in Germany. In doing so, we “contribute significantly to the overuse of aquifers, to high groundwater withdrawals, and to water pollution in other regions.”
Water Conflicts Escalate With Increasing Frequency
Although not every country is facing a water bankruptcy, Madani said, “water systems are interconnected through trade, migration, climate effects, and geopolitical dependencies.”
According to the UN report, 1.2 billion people live in regions where agriculture suffers from severe water scarcity. 170 million hectares of cropland — about the size of Germany, France, Spain, and Italy combined — are under water stress. The situation is particularly strained in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
Conflicts over water are therefore rising sharply: in 2014 there were about 70; by 2024, more than 400. In cities, water supply is increasingly collapsing, such as last autumn in Tehran, Iran, where a drought nearly brought the city’s already strained water supply to a standstill. Similar cases have occurred in Cape Town, South Africa; Chennai, India; and São Paulo, Brazil.
According to the report, the accelerating climate crisis amplifies all these trends, as glaciers that store fresh water melt and swings between extreme dry and extreme wet weather become more frequent.
Local Solutions Must Not Be Forgotten, Warns Researcher
To counter the new state of “water bankruptcy,” Madani and his team call for a reorientation of global water management: it must be acknowledged that some broken water systems cannot be repaired, that future damage must be avoided, and that justice must be at the center of water policy.
For example, there are certain agricultural practices that are simply no longer feasible in a water bankruptcy. For instance, certain plots of land that only yield through intensive irrigation would have to be abandoned. The farmers, however, should not be left to fend for themselves, but would need help in the form of expertise and loans to transition to other forms of agriculture or even to new jobs such as ecotourism.
Local Water Management Must Not Be Pushed Into the Background
Rike Becker, Imperial College London
The UN report concentrates its proposed solutions heavily on raising awareness globally and embedding it in the various UN processes. This focus on a global agenda, warn the London-based researcher Becker, is risky: “Given the current geopolitical situation, rapid, globally coordinated political decisions are unlikely to be realistic,” she said. “Since the urgency to act is high and the challenges are highly local, local water management efforts must not be relegated to the background.”
