By the end of the decade, fresh water on the planet will be insufficient. And it is entirely humanity's fault. This is the finding of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.
We can no longer ignore the global water crisis. The tone of the report Turning the Tide, published for World Water Day on 22 March by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water — established at the 2022 Davos World Economic Forum — is unequivocal and alarming. And no wonder: the key finding to emerge from the study is staggering. By the end of the decade, demand for fresh water will exceed its availability by 40 per cent.
The disasters we witnessed in 2022 — the Pakistan floods being the most striking example — should be seen as a preview of what will happen with increasing frequency in the future. Hurricanes, floods, heatwaves and droughts can wipe out, within the space of a few weeks, the progress in development that has been painstakingly built up over decades.
Extreme weather events are only part of the problem, the report stresses. Today, out of a global population of 8 billion people, more than 2 billion lack access to safely managed water. Every 80 seconds, a child under the age of five dies from diseases linked to contaminated water. Water scarcity, combined with soaring food prices, has plunged entire communities across the Global South into a state of severe food insecurity.
On the question of responsibility, the study is unambiguous. "What we are witnessing is not the consequence of unusual events, nor of population growth and economic development, but of our decades-long mismanagement of water at the global level. We have altered precipitation cycles and failed to protect freshwater ecosystems, to manage demand in order to avoid overconsumption, to prevent contamination, to encourage recycling, and to develop and disseminate water-saving technologies."
The result? By 2030, demand for fresh water could exceed its availability by as much as 40 per cent, with even more critical situations in certain parts of the world. This is the first time in history that anything of this kind has occurred. A dangerous vicious cycle has also taken hold, in which the water crisis, climate change and biodiversity loss reinforce and exacerbate one another. In practice, fresh water scarcity is an obstacle to achieving all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
"We need a far more proactive, ambitious approach, one oriented towards the common good. We must place justice and equity at the centre, because this is not merely an economic or financial problem," explains Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, co-author of the report. In practical terms, the study puts forward seven recommendations:
