Dozens of the world's major rivers are so exploited that they often dry up before reaching the sea. More than half of all large lakes are shrinking, and most of the world's major groundwater sources are irreversibly declining as agricultural pumping drains water that took centuries or even thousands of years to accumulate.
In a report this week, UN scientists warn that the world has entered a new era of “global water bankruptcy,” a term that clearly underlines the urgency of the efforts needed to protect what remains.
“For too long we have been living beyond our hydrological means,” said lead author Kaveh Madani, director of the Institute for Water, Environment and Health at the United Nations University.
Based on extensive research, the report says that more and more regions of the world are overspending on all their water bills and their reserves are falling. The term “water crisis” is often used locally and globally, but scientists said it denotes a temporary emergency from which a region can recover, while many parts of the world are depleting water beyond safe limits and are now bankrupt or on the brink of bankruptcy.
Many rivers, lakes, aquifers and wetlands have passed “tipping points” and cannot recover, according to the report.
“Millions of farmers are trying to grow more food from dwindling, contaminated or disappearing water sources,” Madani said.
It is estimated that 70% of the world's water is used for agriculture. When water resources are depleted, it can mean the collapse of economies, displacement and conflict. The report says that around 3 billion people, and more than half of global food production, are concentrated in areas where water resources are declining.
Scientists said more than half of the world's large lakes have shrunk since the 1990s. About 35% of the planet's natural wetlands, almost the size of the European Union in total, have been wiped out since the 1970s.
Excessive pumping of groundwater has caused long-term declines in about 70% of the world's major aquifers, and in many areas these declines are causing the land to sink. Land subsidence related to excessive pumping of groundwater, according to the report, is occurring over more than 2.3 million square miles, nearly 5% of the global land area. This permanently reduces what the aquifers can hold and also worsens the risk of flooding.
Around 4 billion people suffer from severe water shortages for at least one month a year.
Water scarcity is not just a problem in dry regions of the world, Madani said. “Like financial bankruptcy, it's not about how rich or poor you are. What matters is how you manage your budget.”
And in many regions, the water people constantly use exceeds supply year after year, effectively breaking the budget.
The report points to the Colorado River and its depleted reservoirs, on which California and other Western states depend, as symbols of over-promised water. Other hotspots of chronic overuse include parts of South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
“We must prioritize preventing further damage to our remaining savings,” Madani said. “By recognizing the reality of water bankruptcy, we can finally make difficult decisions that will protect people, economies and ecosystems. The longer we delay, the more the deficit will grow.”
Water scarcity is also caused by deforestation, wetland loss and pollution, the researchers said. These problems are exacerbated by climate change, which is altering the water cycle and causing more severe droughts and floods.
He report was released before a UN water conference in the United Arab Emirates in December.
Madani also authored a peer-reviewed article article this week that presents a definition of water bankruptcy, saying the term is a diagnosis to “communicate the seriousness of the problem and the urgency of a transformative new beginning.”
The banking analogy used throughout the report, he said, points to solutions similar to managing a financial failure: preserving remaining capital while cutting spending.
Solutions to address depleted water resources will vary by region, Madani said, and will need to take into account the reality that “simply taking water away from farmers can mean unemployment, immediate stress and chaotic situations,” and that farmers and others need assistance to use less water and adapt.
in a related study Published last year, scientists analyzed more than two decades of satellite data and found that vast areas of the world are losing fresh water and becoming drier.
In a recent World Bank reportThe researchers said global water use “increased by 25 percent between 2000 and 2019, and about a third of this increase occurred in regions that are already drying.”
Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and professor at Arizona State University, said adopting the term water bankruptcy “is a brilliant way to convey that water resources have been mismanaged, overused and are no longer available to current and future generations.”
He said water experts struggle to find the right “hook” to convey the severity and urgency of the problem, and calling it water bankruptcy promises to be successful.
