The world has entered a new era of ‘water bankruptcy’ with irreversible consequences

By Laura Paddison, CNN

(CNN) — The world has entered “an era of global water bankruptcy” with irreversible consequences, according to a new United Nations report.

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 global situation is so severe that terms like “water crisis” or “water stressed” fail to capture its magnitude, according to the report published Tuesday by the United Nations 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 told CNN.

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 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 European Union 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.

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.

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 that 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 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 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 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, who was not involved in the research. Limiting the climate change will also be vital to ensuring enough water for people and ecosystems, he told CNN.

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.”

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