Global Water Crisis: UN Warns of ‘Water Bankruptcy
Global Water Reserves Depleted, U.N. Report Warns
The world is facing a new era of “global water bankruptcy” as rivers run dry, lakes shrink, and underground aquifers are depleted at unsustainable rates, according to a report released this week by U.N. scientists.
“For too long, we have been living beyond our hydrological means,” said Kaveh Madani, director of the U.N. University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and lead author of the report.
The report distinguishes between a ”water crisis” – a temporary emergency – and “water bankruptcy,” which describes the irreversible depletion of water resources. Many regions are now effectively overspending from their water reserves, pushing ecosystems past “tipping points” from which they cannot recover.
More than half of all large lakes are shrinking, and most of the world’s major underground sources are declining irreversibly as agricultural pumping drains water that took centuries or even thousands of years to accumulate.
Approximately 70% of global water usage goes toward agriculture. The report highlights that exhaustion of water resources can lead to economic collapse, displacement, and conflict. Around 3 billion people and more than half of global food production are located in areas experiencing water decline,according to the report.
Specific findings include:
- More than half of the world’s large lakes have shrunk since the 1990s.
- Approximately 35% of the planet’s natural wetlands – an area nearly the size of the European Union – have been lost since the 1970s.
- Long-term declines have been observed in roughly 70% of the world’s major aquifers, as detailed in a Los Angeles Times report.
Madani noted that millions of farmers are attempting to increase food production using dwindling, polluted, or disappearing water sources.