An era of global water bankruptcy

UN report warns that world has entered a new era of ‘Global water bankruptcy’ with serious consequences  

The world is entering an era of "global water bankruptcy" with rivers, lakes and aquifers depleting faster than nature can replenish them, a UN research institute said. It argues that decades of overuse, pollution, environmental destruction and climate pressure have pushed many water systems so beyond the point of recovery that a new classification was required. "Water stress and water crisis are no longer sufficient descriptions of the world's new water realities," says a new report by the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH). These terms were "framed as alerts about a future that could still be avoided" when the world had already moved into a "new phase", it said. Regions across the world are afflicted by severe water problems: Kabul may be on course to be the first modern city to run out of water. Mexico City is sinking at a rate of around 20 inches a year as the vast aquifer beneath its streets is over-pumped. In the US Southwest, states are locked in a continual battle over the how to share the shrinking water of the drought-stricken Colorado River.

The report proposes the alternative term "water bankruptcy", a state in which long-term water use exceeds resupply and damages nature so severely that previous levels cannot realistically be restored. This was reflected in the shrinking of the world's large lakes, the report said, and the growing number of major rivers failing to reach the sea for parts of the year. The global situation is so severe that terms like “water crisis” or “water stressed” fail to capture its magnitude, according to the report by the UN University and based on a study in the journal Water Resources. “If you keep calling this situation a crisis, you’re implying that it’s temporary. It’s a shock. We can mitigate it,” said Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and the report’s author. With bankruptcy, while it’s still vital to fix and mitigate where possible, “you also need to adapt to a new reality… to new conditions that are more restrictive than before,” he said. In Kabul, Afghanistan, city of six million people could run out water by 2030, some experts say. 

Groundwater depletion is another sign of this bankruptcy. Around 70% of major aquifers used for drinking water and irrigation show long-term declines with rising "day zero" crises, when demand exceeds supply, the "urban face" of this new reality. Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran has shrunk due to drought, river damming and extensive groundwater extraction. Yet, instead of recognizing the problem and adjusting consumption, water is taken for granted and “credit lines keep increasing,” Madani said. He referred to cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Tehran, where expansion and development have been encouraged, despite limited water supplies. “Everything looks right until it’s not,” and then it’s too late, Madani said. The concept of water bankruptcy works like this: Nature provides income in the form of rain and snow, but the world is spending more than it receives, extracting from its rivers, lakes, wetlands and underground aquifers at a much faster rate than they are replenished, putting us in debt. Climate change-fueled heat and drought are compounding the problem, reducing available water. The report calls for a series of actions, including transforming farming, by far the biggest global user of water, through shifting crops and more efficient irrigation; better water monitoring using AI and remote sensing; reducing pollution; and increasing protection for wetlands and groundwater. Water could also be a “bridge in a fragmented world,” as an issue able to transcend political differences, the report authors wrote. “We are seeing more and more countries appreciating the value of it and the importance of it, and that’s what makes me hopeful,” Madani said.

The world is using fresh water from lakes and aquifers faster than it can be replenished. The world has lost enormous proportions of wetlands, with roughly 410 million hectares, nearly the size of the EU, disappearing over the past five decades. The result is shrinking rivers and lakes, dried-up wetlands, declining aquifers, crumbling land and sinkholes, the creep of desertification, a dearth of snow and melting glaciers. The statistics in the report are stark: more than 50% of the planet’s large lakes have lost water since 1990, 70% of major aquifers are in long-term decline, an area of wetlands almost the size of the EU has been erased over the past 50 years, and glaciers have shrunk 30% since 1970. Even in places where water systems are less strained, pollution is reducing the amount available for drinking. “Many regions are living beyond their hydrological means” and it’s impossible now to return to conditions that used to exist, Madani said. It brings human consequences: nearly 4 billion people face water scarcity for at least one month every year. Most major aquifers used for drinking and irrigation show long-term declines. Climate change was compounding the problem, spurring the loss of more than 30% of the world's glacier mass since 1970, and the seasonal meltwater relied upon by hundreds of millions of people.

Some regions are affected more severely, the report noted. The Middle East and North Africa grapple with high water stress and extreme climate vulnerability. Parts of South Asia are experiencing chronic declines in water due to groundwater-dependent farming and ballooning urban populations. The US Southwest is another a hotspot, according to the report. Madani pointed to the Colorado River, where water sharing agreements are based on an environmental situation which no longer exists. Drought has shrunk the river, but it’s not a temporary crisis, he said, “it’s a permanent new condition, and we have less water than before.” The consequences were visible on every inhabited continent, but not every country individually was water bankrupt, UNU-INWEH director and report author Kaveh Madani said. Madani said the phenomenon was a "warning" that a policy rethink was essential. Instead of approaching water scarcity as something temporary, governments must "be honest" and "file for bankruptcy today rather than delaying this decision", he said. "Let's adopt this framework. Let's understand this. Let us recognise this bitter reality today before we cause more irreversible damages," Madani added. The findings are alarming, but recognizing water bankruptcy can help countries move from short term emergency thinking to long-term strategies to reduce irreversible damage, Madani said.

The report’s call to action “rightly centres on long-term recovery as opposed to firefighting water crises,” wrote Richard Allen, a climate science professor at the University of Reading. Limiting the climate change will also be vital to ensuring enough water for people and ecosystems, he said. Jonathan Paul, associate professor in geoscience at Royal Holloway University, said the report “lays bare, in unambiguous terms, humankind’s mistreatment of water.” But he said the concept of global water bankruptcy is “overstated,” even if many areas are expressing acute water stress. Madani wants the report to spur action. “By acknowledging the reality of water bankruptcy, we can finally make the hard choices that will protect people, economies, and ecosystems. The longer we delay, the deeper the deficit grows.” The report draws on existing data and statistics and does not provide an exhaustive record of all water problems, but attempts instead to redefine the situation. It is based on a peer-reviewed report, soon to be published in the journal Water Resources Management, which will formally propose a definition of "water bankruptcy". The report "captures a hard truth: the world's water crisis has crossed a point of no return", Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the WaterAid charity, said. Some scientists not involved in the report welcomed the spotlight on water but warned that the global picture varied considerably, and a blanket declaration might overlook progress being made at a local level.