The world has entered what the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) has described as an ‘era of global water bankruptcy’, such is the extent of groundwater depletion, land and soil degradation, deforestation and pollution.
In a new report, Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era, the UNU-INWEH said that commonly-used terms such as ‘water stress’ and ‘water crisis’ fail to reflect the gravity of the situation – that the planet’s water systems are in many cases beyond recovery.
‘Living beyond their hydrological means’
“This report tells an uncomfortable truth: many regions are living beyond their hydrological means, and many critical water systems are already bankrupt,” says lead author Kaveh Madani, director of the UNU-INWEH.
In financial terms, many societies have not only overspent their annual renewable water ‘income’, from rivers, soils and melting ice, but they have also depleted long-term ‘savings’ in aquifers, glaciers, wetlands, and other natural reservoirs.
This process has led to smaller aquifers, land subsidence, shrinking lakes, lost wetlands, and declining biodiversity.
According to the authors, water bankruptcy describes a post-crisis state in which natural water capital has been depleted and historic baselines cannot realistically be restored.
As the report finds, around half of the world’s largest lakes have seen water levels reduce since the early 1990s, while roughly 70% of major aquifers are showing signs of long-term decline.
The agriculture industry is the largest user of freshwater globally, with more than 40% of irrigation water now drawn from aquifers that are being depleted faster than they can refill, it noted.
Water depletion
Close to three-quarters of the global population live in countries classified as ‘water insecure’ or ‘critically water insecure’, with the report citing the Middle East and North Africa, parts of South Asia, and the American Southwest, as ‘hotspot’ areas when it comes to water depletion.
While not every part of the world is water bankrupt, Madani added, “enough critical systems around the world have crossed these thresholds. These systems are interconnected through trade, migration, climate feedbacks, and geopolitical dependencies, so the global risk landscape is now fundamentally altered.
“Millions of farmers are trying to grow more food from shrinking, polluted, or disappearing water sources. Without rapid transitions toward water-smart agriculture, water bankruptcy will spread rapidly.” Read more here.
Key findings from the report
| Indicator | Key finding |
|---|---|
| Large lakes | 50% of large lakes worldwide have lost water since the early 1990s, affecting 25% of humanity that depends on them. |
| Domestic water supply | 50% of global domestic water is now derived from groundwater. |
| Irrigation water | More than 40% of irrigation water comes from aquifers that are being steadily depleted. |
| Aquifers | 70% of major aquifers show long-term decline. |
| Natural wetlands | 410 million hectares of natural wetlands—nearly the size of the European Union—have been erased in the past five decades. |
| Glaciers | Over 30% of global glacier mass has been lost since 1970 in several regions, with many mountain ranges expected to lose functional glaciers within decades. |
| Rivers | Dozens of major rivers now fail to reach the sea for parts of the year. |
| Water overdraft | Many river basins and aquifers have been overdrawing their water supplies for more than 50 years. |
| Soil salinization | 100 million hectares of cropland have been damaged by salinization alone. |
| Human consequences | |
| Water insecurity | 75% of humanity lives in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure. |
| Land subsidence | 2 billion people live on sinking ground, with some cities experiencing annual drops of up to 25 cm. |
| Water scarcity | 4 billion people face severe water scarcity for at least one month every year. |
| Irrigated cropland | 170 million hectares of irrigated cropland are under high or very high water stress—equivalent to France, Spain, Germany, and Italy combined. |
| Wetland services | Lost wetland ecosystem services are valued at US$5.1 trillion annually. |
| Food and water systems | 3 billion people live in areas where water storage is declining or unstable, yet more than 50% of global food is produced there. |
| Drought exposure | 1.8 billion people lived under drought conditions in 2022–2023, costing the global economy US$307 billion annually. |
| Water and sanitation | 2.2 billion people lack safely managed drinking water, while 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation. |
