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• Frontiers - Reducing Water Scarcity by Reducing Food Loss and Waste
• National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - The world’s road to water scarcity: shortage and stress in the 20th century and pathways towards sustainability
• Biology LibreTexts - Water Scarcity and Solutions
• Nature - Evaluating the economic impact of water scarcity in a changing world
• UN-Water - Water Scarcity
• World Wildlife Fund - Water Scarcity
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water scarcity , insufficient freshwater resources to meet the human and environmental demands of a given area. Water scarcity is inextricably linked to human rights , and sufficient access to safe drinking water is a priority for global development. However, given the challenges of population growth , profligate use, growing pollution , and changes in weather patterns due to global warming , many countries and major cities worldwide, both wealthy and poor, faced increasing water scarcity in the 21st century.

There are two general types of water scarcity: physical and economic. Physical, or absolute, water scarcity is the result of a region’s demand outpacing the limited water resources found there. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations , around 1.2 billion people live in areas of physical scarcity; many of these people live in arid or semi-arid regions. Physical water scarcity can be seasonal; an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population lives in areas subject to seasonal water scarcity at least one month of the year. The number of people affected by physical water scarcity is expected to grow as populations increase and as weather patterns become more unpredictable and extreme.

Economic water scarcity is due to a lack of water infrastructure in general or to the poor management of water resources where infrastructure is in place. The FAO estimates that more than 1.6 billion people face economic water shortage. In areas with economic water scarcity, there usually is sufficient water to meet human and environmental needs, but access is limited. Mismanagement or underdevelopment may mean that accessible water is polluted or unsanitary for human consumption . One of the most significant infrastructure problems is known as “non-revenue water,” in which treated water is never used because it is lost to leaks in the water supply pipes. In the United States , for example, non-revenue water averages around 20 percent; a remarkable loss of potable water. Economic water scarcity can also result from unregulated water use for agriculture or industry , often at the expense of the general population. Finally, major inefficiencies in water use, usually due to the economic undervaluing of water as a finite natural resource, can contribute to water scarcity.

Often, economic water scarcity arises from multiple factors in combination. A classic example of this is Mexico City , home to more than 20 million people in its metropolitan area . Although the city receives abundant rainfall, averaging more than 700 mm (27.5 inches) annually, its centuries of urban development mean that most precipitation is lost as contaminated runoff in the sewer system . In addition, elimination of the wetlands and lakes that once surrounded the city means that very little of this precipitation feeds back into local aquifers . Nearly half of the municipal water supply is taken unsustainably from the aquifer system under the city. Withdrawals so greatly exceed the aquifer’s renewal that some parts of the region sink up to 40 cm (16 inches) every year. In addition, it is estimated that somewhere between 40–70 percent of the city’s water is lost through leaks in pipes that have been damaged by earthquakes , by the sinking of the city, and by old age . Many areas, especially poorer neighborhoods, regularly experience water shortages, and water for residents there is routinely brought in by trucks. The historical and modern mismanagement of surface and ground waters and natural areas, coupled with the complexities of being an old but ever-growing city, have made Mexico City one of the top cities threatened by economic water scarcity in the world. In early 2024, nearly 90% of Mexico City was in severe drought and the possibility of “day zero,” in which the city could run out of water, loomed for the summer months.

In places with low rainfall or limited access to surface water, reliance on aquifers is commonplace. The exploitation of groundwater resources can threaten future water supplies if the rate of withdrawal from the aquifer exceeds the rate of natural recharge. It is estimated that a third of the world’s largest aquifer systems are in distress. In addition, the redirection, overuse, and pollution of rivers and lakes for irrigation , industry, and municipal uses can result in significant environmental harm and the collapse of ecosystems. A classic example of this is the Aral Sea , which was once the world’s fourth largest body of inland water but has shrunk to a fraction of its former size because of the diversion of its inflowing rivers for agricultural irrigation.

As water resources become scarce , there are increasing problems with fair water allocation. Governments may be forced to choose between agricultural, industrial, municipal, or environmental interests, and some groups win at the expense of others. Chronic water scarcity can culminate in forced migration and domestic or regional conflicts, especially in geopolitically fragile areas.

Areas with chronic water scarcity are particularly susceptible to water crises, where water supplies dwindle to critical levels. In 2018, residents of Cape Town , South Africa , were faced with the possibility of “Day Zero,” the day on which municipal taps would run dry, the first potential water crisis of any major city. Thanks to extreme water conservation efforts and the fortuitous arrival of rain, the immediate threat passed without major incident. However, given that humans can survive only a few days without water, a water crisis can rapidly escalate into a complex humanitarian emergency . The 2017 Global Risks Report of the World Economic Forum ranked water crises as the third most important global risk in terms of impact on humanity, following weapons of mass destruction and extreme weather events, though water issues were ranked behind other global risks on subsequent reports. In 2023, the United Nations World Water Development Report conveyed an imminent risk of a global water crisis and urged greater international cooperation..

Addressing water scarcity requires a multidisciplinary approach. Water resources must be managed with the goal of equitably maximizing economic and social welfare without compromising ecosystem functioning. This ideal is sometimes referred to as the “ triple bottom line”: economics, environment , and equity .

A number of environmental, economic, and engineering solutions have been proposed or implemented worldwide. Public education is undoubtedly key for water conservation efforts, and all public and environmental policy must utilize sound science for the implementation of sustainable resource management initiatives .

The preservation and restoration of ecosystems that naturally collect, filter, store, and release water, such as wetlands and forests , is a key strategy in the fight against water scarcity. Freshwater ecosystems also provide a number of other ecosystem services , such as nutrient recycling and flood protection. Only an intact ecosystem can support these ecological processes, which have economic and social value. Natural areas, however, are often not evaluated with their ecological importance in mind and are destroyed or degraded for more immediate economic benefits. Urban planning and sustainable development must prioritize the conservation and restoration of wild lands adjacent to urban areas and properly value the ecosystem services they provide.

A number of studies have shown that higher water prices reduce water waste and pollution and can serve to fund water infrastructure improvements. However, price increases are publicly and politically unpopular in most places, and policy makers must be careful to consider how such increases may affect the poor. A water tax on heavy users could deter wasteful water consumption in industry and agriculture while leaving household water prices unaffected. While consumers would likely experience higher product prices due to the increased costs of production, ideally such a tax would help decouple economic growth from water use. In many places, rebates for the replacement of water-wasteful appliances, such as toilets and shower heads, are a common and cost-effective alternative .

Industrial agriculture is a major consumer of freshwater resources and a major contributor to water pollution from pesticide and fertilizer runoff and animal wastes. Policies that incentivize organic farming and other sustainable farming practices serve to protect water sources from agricultural pollutants. Other agricultural policies could work to incentivize the cultivation of more drought-tolerant crops in areas that experience water stress. For example, environmentalists have long criticized the growing of heavily water-dependent crops such as almonds and alfalfa in California’s semi-arid Central Valley.

A number of water scarcity challenges can be addressed with traditional engineering, often with immediate benefits. One of the most obvious solutions is infrastructure repair. Finding ways to lower installation and maintenance costs, especially in less-developed countries, and designing engineering solutions that benefit the environment and address climate change impacts are challenges in infrastructure repair.

Given that about 70 percent of all freshwater resources are devoted to agriculture, another major solution is the improvement of irrigation technologies. Many agricultural areas rely on simple flooding, or surface irrigation , as the principle means of irrigation. However, flooding often inundates fields with more water than crops require, and significant amounts of water are lost to evaporation or in transportation from its source. Educating farmers about potential water loss from such practices, setting clear water-use reduction targets, and funding irrigation improvements and water-conservation technologies can help reduce wasteful water use in agriculture.

Desalination has been proposed to curb water scarcity problems in areas with access to brackish groundwater or seawater. Indeed, desalted water is already a main source of municipal water supplies in a number of densely populated arid regions, such as Saudi Arabia . However, existing desalination technology requires a substantial amount of energy, usually in the form of fossil fuels , so the process is expensive. For this reason, it is generally used only where sources of fresh water are not economically available. In addition, the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and brine wastewater generated by desalination plants pose significant environmental challenges.

Wastewater can be a valuable resource in cities or towns where the population is growing and water supplies are limited. In addition to easing the strain on limited freshwater supplies, the reuse of wastewater can improve the quality of streams and lakes by reducing the polluted effluent discharges that they receive. Wastewater may be reclaimed and reused for crop and landscape irrigation, groundwater recharge, or recreational purposes. Reclamation for drinking or household use is technically possible, but this reuse faces significant public resistance. The development of water-recycling plants is increasingly common in cities worldwide. The use of wastewater to fertilize algae or other biofuels has been proposed as a way to efficiently cultivate these water-intensive crops while promoting renewable energy sources. See also wastewater treatment .

Rainwater harvesting for nonpotable functions, such as gardening and washing clothes, can significantly reduce both the demand on public freshwater supplies and the strain on stormwater infrastructure. The savings in demand and supply of potable fresh water can be significant in large cities, and a number of water-stressed municipalities, such as Mexico City , are actively developing rainwater harvesting systems. Many localities encourage and even subsidize rain barrels and other rainwater harvesting systems. In some areas, however, particularly in the western United States, rainwater harvesting is viewed as a water rights issue, and restrictions are placed on such collections. In addition, catchment systems that collect runoff and allow it to percolate into the ground are useful for recharging groundwater.

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• Published: 03 August 2021

Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions

• Chunyang He   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8440-5536 1 , 2 ,
• Zhifeng Liu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4087-0743 1 , 2 ,
• Jianguo Wu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1182-3024 1 , 2 , 3 ,
• Xinhao Pan 1 , 2 ,
• Zihang Fang 1 , 2 ,
• Jingwei Li 4 &
• Brett A. Bryan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4834-5641 5  

Nature Communications volume  12 , Article number:  4667 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Water resources

Urbanization and climate change are together exacerbating water scarcity—where water demand exceeds availability—for the world’s cities. We quantify global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 under four socioeconomic and climate change scenarios, and explored potential solutions. Here we show the global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to increase from 933 million (one third of global urban population) in 2016 to 1.693–2.373 billion people (one third to nearly half of global urban population) in 2050, with India projected to be most severely affected in terms of growth in water-scarce urban population (increase of 153–422 million people). The number of large cities exposed to water scarcity is projected to increase from 193 to 193–284, including 10–20 megacities. More than two thirds of water-scarce cities can relieve water scarcity by infrastructure investment, but the potentially significant environmental trade-offs associated with large-scale water scarcity solutions must be guarded against.

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Introduction.

The world is rapidly urbanizing. From 1950 to 2020, the global population living in cities increased from 0.8 billion (29.6%) to 4.4 billion (56.2%) and is projected to reach 6.7 billion (68.4%) by 2050 1 . Water scarcity—where demand exceeds availability—is a key determinant of water security and directly affects the health and wellbeing of urban residents, urban environmental quality, and socioeconomic development 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . At present, many of the world’s urban populations face water scarcity 3 . Population growth, urbanization, and socioeconomic development are expected to increase urban industrial and domestic water demand by 50–80% over the next three decades 4 , 7 . In parallel, climate change will affect the spatial distribution and timing of water availability 8 , 9 . As a result, urban water scarcity is likely to become much more serious in the future 10 , 11 , 12 , potentially compromising the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG6 Clean Water and Sanitation 13 , 14 .

Urban water scarcity has typically been addressed via engineering and infrastructure. Reservoirs are commonly used to store water during periods of excess availability and continuously supply water to cities to avoid water shortages during dry periods 15 . Desalination plants are increasingly used to solve water deficit problems for coastal cities 16 . For cities where local water resources cannot meet demand, inter-basin water transfer can also be an effective solution 17 (Supplementary Table  8 ). However, investment in water infrastructure is costly; requires substantial human, energy, and material resources; is limited by natural conditions such as geographic location and topography; and may have very significant environmental impacts 2 , 3 , 18 . Hence, a comprehensive understanding of water scarcity and the potential solutions for the world’s cities is urgently required to promote more sustainable and livable urban futures 7 , 18 , 19 .

Previous studies have evaluated urban water scarcity 2 , 3 , 7 , 19 (Supplementary Table  3 ). However, these studies have been limited in a number of ways including: assessing only a subset of the urban population (e.g., large cities only or regional in focus); considering only part of the water scarcity problem (i.e., availability but not withdrawal); or lacking a future perspective. For example, in assessing global urban water scarcity, Flörke et al. 7 considered 482 cities (accounting for just 26% of the global urban population) under a business-as-usual scenario, and while McDonald et al. 2 assessed a larger range of cities and scenarios, they considered water availability only, not withdrawals. As a result, significant uncertainty in estimates of current and future extent of urban water-scarcity remain, varying from 0.2 to 1 billion people affected in 2000 and from 0.5 to 4 billion in 2050 (Supplementary Table  4 ). A comprehensive assessment of global urban water scarcity is needed to identify cities at risk and provide better estimates of the number of people affected.

In addition, although many studies have discussed potential solutions to urban water scarcity, few have investigated the feasibility of these solutions for water-scarce cities at the global scale. Proposed solutions include groundwater exploitation, seawater desalination, increased water storage in reservoirs, inter-basin water transfer, improved water-use efficiency, and urban landscape management 2 , 3 , 14 , 19 . However, the potential effectiveness of these solutions for the world’s water-scarce cities depends on many factors including the severity of water scarcity, urban and regional geography and hydrogeology, socio-economic characteristics, and environmental carrying capacity 7 , 20 . Pairing the identification of water scarce cities with an evaluation of potential solutions is essential for guiding investment in future urban water security.

In this study, we comprehensively assessed global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 and the feasibility of potential solutions for water-scarce cities. We first quantified the spatial patterns of the global urban population for 2016 at a grid-cell resolution of 1 km 2 by integrating spatial urban land-use and population data. We then identified water-scarce areas at the catchment scale by combining global water resource availability and demand data, and calculated the global urban population in water-scarce areas in 2016. We also quantified the global urban population in water-scarce areas for 2050 under four socioeconomic and climate change scenarios by combining modeled projections of global urban area, population, and water availability and demand. Finally, we evaluated the feasibility of seven major solutions for easing water scarcity for each affected city. We discuss the implications of the results for mitigating global urban water scarcity and improving the sustainability and livability of the world’s cities.

Current urban water scarcity

Globally, 933 million (32.5%) urban residents lived in water-scarce regions in 2016 (Table  1 , Fig.  1b ) with 359 million (12.5%) and 573 million (20.0%) experiencing perennial and seasonal water scarcity, respectively. India (222 million) and China (159 million) had the highest urban populations facing water scarcity (Table  1 , Fig.  1c ).

a spatial patterns of large cities in water-scarce areas (cities with population above 10 million in 2016 were labeled). b Water-scarce urban population at the global scale. c Water-scarce urban population at the national scale (10 countries with the largest values were listed). Please refer to Supplementary Data for urban water scarcity in each catchment.

Of the world’s 526 large cities (i.e., population >1 million), 193 (36.7%) were located in water-scarce regions (96 perennial, 97 seasonal) (Fig.  1a ). Of the 30 megacities (i.e., population >10 million), 9 (30.0%) were located in water-scarce regions (Table  2 ). Six of these, including Los Angeles, Moscow, Lahore, Delhi, Bangalore, and Beijing, were located in regions with perennial water scarcity and three (Mexico City, Istanbul, and Karachi) were seasonally water-scarce (Fig.  1a ).

Urban water scarcity in 2050

At the global scale, the urban population facing water scarcity was projected to increase rapidly, reaching 2.065 (1.693–2.373) billion people by 2050, a 121.3% (81.5–154.4%) increase from 2016 (Table  1 , Fig.  2a ). 840 (476–905) million people were projected to face perennial water scarcity and 1.225 (0.902–1.647) billion were projected to face seasonal water scarcity (Table  1 ). India’s urban population growth in water-scarce regions was projected to be much higher than other countries (Fig.  2b ), increasing from 222 million people to 550 (376–644) million people in 2050 and accounting for 26.7% (19.2%–31.2%) of the world’s urban population facing water scarcity (Table  1 ).

a Changes in water-scarce urban population at the global scale. Bars present the simulated results using the ensemble mean of runoff from GCMs, the total values (i.e., perennial and seasonal), and percentages are labeled. Crosses (gray/black) present the simulated results (total/perennial) using runoff from each GCM. b Changes in water-scarce urban population at the national scale (10 countries with the largest values were listed). Bars present the total values simulated using the ensemble mean of runoff from GCMs. Crosses present the total values simulated using runoff from each GCM. Please refer to Supplementary Data for urban water scarcity in each catchment.

Nearly half of the world’s large cities were projected to be located in water-scarce regions by 2050 (Fig.  3 , Supplementary Fig.  3 ). The number of large cities facing water scarcity under at least one scenario was projected to increase to 292 (55.5%) by 2050. The number of megacities facing water scarcity under at least one scenario was projected to increase to 19 (63.3%) including 10 new megacities (i.e., Cairo, Dhaka, Jakarta, Lima, Manila, Mumbai, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, and Tianjin) (Table  2 ).

Only the water-scarce cities are listed. Cities with a population >10 million in 2016 are labeled.

Factors influencing urban water scarcity

Growth in urban population and water demand will be the main factor contributing to the increase in urban water scarcity (Fig.  4 ). From 2016 to 2050, population growth, urbanization, and socioeconomic development were projected to increase water demand and contribute to an additional 0.990 (0.829–1.135) billion people facing urban water scarcity, accounting for 87.5% (80.4–91.4%) of the total increase. Climate change was projected to alter water availability and increase the urban population subject to water scarcity by 52 (−72–229) million, accounting for 4.6% (−9.0–18.4%) of the total increase.

Bars present the simulated results using the ensemble mean of runoff from GCMs, crosses present the simulated results using runoff from each GCM.

Potential solutions to urban water scarcity

Water scarcity could be relieved for 276 (94.5%) large cities, including 17 (89.5%) megacities, via the measures assessed (Table  3 , Supplementary Table  5 ). Among these, 260 (89.0%) cities have the option of implementing two or more measures. For example, Los Angeles can adopt desalination, groundwater exploitation, inter-basin water transfer, and/or virtual water trade (Table  3 ). However, 16 large cities, including two megacities (i.e., Delhi and Lahore) in India and Pakistan, are restricted by geography and economic development levels, making it difficult to adopt any of the potential water scarcity solutions (Table  3 ).

Domestic virtual water trade was the most effective solution, which could alleviate water scarcity for 208 (71.2%) large cities (including 14 (73.7%) megacities). Inter-basin water transfer could be effective for 200 (68.5%) large cities (including 14 (73.7%) megacities). Groundwater exploitation could be effective for 192 (65.8%) large cities (including 11 (57.9%) megacities). International water transfer and virtual water trade showed potential for 190 (65.1%) large cities (including 10 (52.6%) megacities). Reservoir construction could relieve water scarcity for 151 (51.7%) large cities (including 10 (52.6%) megacities). Seawater desalination has the potential to relieve water scarcity for 146 (50.0%) large cities (including 12 (63.2%) megacities). In addition, water scarcity for 68 (23.3%) large cities, including five megacities (i.e., New York, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Dhaka, and Jakarta), could be solved via the water-use efficiency improvements, slowed population growth rate, and climate change mitigation measures considered under SSP1&RCP2.6.

We have provided a comprehensive evaluation of current and future global urban water scarcity and the feasibility of potential solutions for water-scarce cities. We found that the global urban population facing water scarcity was projected to double from 933 million (33%) in 2016 to 1.693–2.373 billion (35–51%) in 2050, and the number of large cities facing water scarcity under at least one scenario was projected to increase from 193 (37%) to 292 (56%). Among these cities, 276 large cities (95%) can address water scarcity through improving water-use efficiency, limiting population growth, and mitigating climate change under SSP1&RCP2.6; or via seawater desalination, groundwater exploitation, reservoir construction, interbasin water transfer, or virtual water trade. However, no solutions were available to relieve water scarcity for 16 large cities (5%), including two megacities (i.e., Delhi and Lahore) in India and Pakistan.

Previous studies have estimated the global urban population facing water scarcity to be between 150 and 810 million people in 2000, between 320 and 650 million people in 2010, and increasing to 0.479–1.445 billion people by 2050 (Supplementary Table  4 ). Our estimates of 933 million people in 2016 facing urban water scarcity, increasing to 1.693–2.373 billion people by 2050, are substantially higher than previously reported (Supplementary Fig.  5a ). This difference is attributed to the fact that we evaluated the exposure of all urban dwellers rather than just those living in large cities (Supplementary Table  3 ). According to United Nations census data, 42% of the world’s urban population lives in small cities with a total population of <300,000 (Supplementary Fig.  4 ). Therefore, it is difficult to fully understand the global urban water scarcity only by evaluating the exposure of large cities. This study makes up for this deficiency and provides a comprehensive assessment of global urban water scarcity.

In addition, we used spatially corrected urban population data, newly released water demand/availability data, simulated runoff from GCMs in the most recent CMIP6 database, catchment-based estimation approach covering the upstream impacts on downstream water availability, and the new scenario framework combining socioeconomic development and climate change. Such data and methods can reduce the uncertainty in the spatial distribution of urban population and water demand/availability in the future, providing a more reliable assessment of global urban water scarcity.

Our projections suggest that global urban water scarcity will continue to intensify from 2016 to 2050 under all scenarios. By 2050, near half of the global urban population was projected to live in water-scarce regions (Figs.  2 ,  3 ). This will directly threaten the realization of SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG6 Clean Water and Sanitation . Although 95% of water-scarce cities can address the water crisis via improvement of water-use efficiency, seawater desalination, groundwater exploitation, reservoir construction, interbasin water transfer, or virtual water trade (Supplementary Table  5 ), these measures will not only have transformative impacts on society and the economy, but will also profoundly affect the natural environment. For example, the construction of reservoirs and inter-basin water transfer may cause irreversible damage to river ecosystems and hydrogeology and change the regional climate 4 , 15 , 17 , 21 , 22 . Desalination can have serious impacts on coastal zones and marine ecosystems 16 , 23 . Virtual water trade will affect regional economies, increase transport sector greenhouse gas emissions, and may exacerbate social inequality and affect the local environments where goods are produced 19 , 24 .

Water scarcity solutions may not be available to all cities. The improvement of water-use efficiency as well as other measures require the large-scale construction of water infrastructure, rapid development of new technologies, and large economic investment, which are difficult to achieve in low- and middle-income countries by 2050 14 . In addition, there will be 16 large cities, such as Delhi and Lahore, that cannot effectively solve the water scarcity problem via these measures (Supplementary Table  5 ). These cities also face several socioeconomic and environmental issues such as poverty, rapid population growth, and overextraction and pollution of groundwater 25 , 26 , which will further affect the achievement of SDG1 No Poverty , SDG3 Good Health and Well-being , SDG10 Reduced Inequalities , SDG14 Life below Water and SDG15 Life on Land .

To address global urban water scarcity and realize the SDGs, four directions are suggested. We need to:

Promote water conservation and reduce water demand. Our assessment provides evidence that the proposed water conservation efforts under SSP1&RCP2.6 are effective, which results in the least water-scarce urban population (34–241 million fewer compared to other SSPs&RCPs) at the global scale and can mitigate water scarcity for 68 (23.3%) large cities. The application of emerging water-saving technologies and the construction of sponge cities, smart cities, low-carbon cities, and resilient cities as well as the development of new theories and methods such as landscape sustainability science, watershed science, and geodesign will also play an important role for the further water demand reduction 5 , 6 , 27 , 28 , 29 . To implement these measures, the cooperation and efforts of scientists, policy makers and the public, as well as sufficient financial and material support are required. In addition, international cooperation must be strengthened in order to promote the development and dissemination of new technologies, assist in the construction of water infrastructure, and raise public awareness of water-savings, particularly in the Global South 30 .

Control population growth and urbanization in water-scarce regions by implementing relevant policies and regional planning. Urban population growth increases both water stress and the exposure of people, making it a key driver exacerbating global urban water scarcity 2 . Hence, the limitation of urban population growth in water-scarce areas can help to address this issue. According to our estimation, the control of urbanization under SSP3&RCP7.0, which has the lowest urbanization rate among four scenarios, can reduce the urban population subject to water scarcity by 93–207 million people compared with the business-as-usual scenario (SSP2&RCP4.5) and the rapid urbanization scenario (SSP5&RCP8.5), including 80–178 million people in India alone by 2050 (Fig.  2 ). To realize this pathway, policies that encourage family planning as well as tax incentives and regional planning for promoting population migration from water-scarce areas to other areas are needed 18 . In particular, for cities such as Delhi and Lahore that are both restricted by geography and socioeconomic disadvantage and have few options for dealing with water scarcity, there is an urgent need to control urban population growth and urbanization rates.

Mitigate climate change through energy efficiency and emissions abatement measures to avoid water resource impacts caused by the change in precipitation and the increase in evapotranspiration due to increased temperature. Our contribution analysis shows that the impacts of climate change on urban water scarcity is quite uncertain (ranging from a reduction of 72 million water-scarce urban people to an increase of 229 million) under different scenarios and GCMs (Fig.  4 ). On average, climate change under the business-as-usual scenario (SSP2&RCP4.5) will increase the global water-scarce urban population by 31 million in 2050. If the emissions reduction measures under SSP1&RCP2.6 are adopted, the increase in global water-scarce urban population due to climate change will be cut by half (16 million) in 2050. Thus, mitigating climate change is also important to reducing urban water scarcity. Considering that climate change in water-scarce areas would be affected by both internal and external impacts, mitigating climate change requires a global effort 31 .

Undertake integrated local sustainability assessment of water scarcity solutions. Our assessment reveals that 208 (71.2%) large cities may address water scarcity through seawater desalination, groundwater exploitation, reservoir construction, interbasin water transfer, and/or virtual water trade (Supplementary Table  5 ). While our results provide a guide at the global scale, city-level decisions about which measures to adopt to alleviate water scarcity involve very significant investments and should be supported by detailed local assessments of their relative effectiveness weighed against the potentially significant financial, environmental, and socio-economic costs. Integrated analyses are needed to quantify the effects of potential solutions on reducing water scarcity, their financial and resource requirements, and their potential impacts on socio-economic development for water-scarce cities and the sustainability of regional environments. To guard against the potential negative impacts of these measures, comprehensive impact assessments are required before implementing them, stringent regulatory oversight and continuous environmental monitoring are needed during and after their implementation, and policies and regulations should be established to achieve the sustainable supply and equitable distribution of water resources 24 , 32 .

Uncertainty is prevalent in our results due to limitations in the methodology and data used. First, constrained by data availability, in the evaluation of urban water scarcity in 2016 we used water demand/availability data for 2014 derived from the simulation results of the PCRGLOBWB 2 model, and only considered the inter-basin water transfers listed in City Water Map and the renewable groundwater simulated from the PCRGLOBWB 2 model instead of all available groundwater 3 , 33 . In the assessment of urban water scarcity and feasibility of potential solutions in 2050, we used water demand data derived from Hanasaki et al. 34 , in which irrigated area expansion, crop intensity change, and improvement in irrigation water efficiency were considered, but the change in irrigation to adapt to climate change as well as the impacts of energy systems (e.g., bio-energy production, mining, and fossil fuel extraction) on water demand were not fully considered 35 . Second, in order to maintain consistency and comparability of the water stress index (WSI) with the PCRGLOBWB 2 outputs 33 , environmental flow requirements were not considered. Following Mekonnen and Hoekstra 36 and Veldkamp et al. 37 (2017), we used an extreme threshold for WSI of 1.0 (where the entire water available is withdrawn for human use). If a more conservative threshold (e.g., WSI = 0.4 which is the threshold defining high water stress) was used, estimated global water scarcity and the urban population exposed to water stress would be much higher 7 .

In summary, global urban water scarcity is projected to intensify greatly from 2016 to 2050. By 2050, nearly half of the global urban population (1.693–2.373 billion) were projected to live in water-scarce regions, with about one quarter concentrated in India, and 19 (63%) global megacities are expected to face water scarcity. Increases in urban population and water demand drove this increase, while changes in water availability due to climate change compounded the problem. About 95% of all water-scarce cities could find at least one potential solution, but substantial investment is needed and solutions may have significant environmental and socioeconomic consequences. The aggravation of global urban water scarcity and the consequences of potential solutions will challenge the achievement of several SDGs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to further improve water-use efficiency, control urbanization in water-scarce areas, mitigate water availability decline due to climate change, and undertake integrated sustainability analyses of potential solutions to address urban water scarcity and promote sustainable development.

Description of scenarios used in this study

To assess future urban water scarcity, we used the scenario framework from the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP), part of the International Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) 38 . The scenarios have been developed to better link the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) to support comprehensive research in different fields to better understand global climatic and socioeconomic interactions 38 , 39 . We selected the four ScenarioMIP Tier 1 scenarios (i.e., SSP1&RCP2.6, SSP2&RCP4.5, SSP3&RCP7.0, and SSP5&RCP8.5) to evaluate future urban water scarcity. SSP1&RCP2.6 represents the sustainable development pathway of low radiative forcing level, low climate change mitigation challenges, and low social vulnerability. SSP2&RCP4.5 represents the business-as-usual pathway of moderate radiative forcing and social vulnerability. SSP3&RCP7.0 represents a higher level of radiative forcing and high social vulnerability. SSP5&RCP8.5 represents a rapid development pathway and very high radiative forcing 38 .

Estimation of urban water scarcity

To estimate urban water scarcity, we quantified the total urban population living in water-scarce areas 2 , 3 , 7 , 19 . Specifically, we first corrected the spatial distribution of the global urban population, then identified water-scarce areas around the world, and finally quantified the urban population in water-scarce areas at different scales (Supplementary Fig.  1 ).

Correcting the spatial distribution of global urban population

The existing global urban population data from the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) provided consistent information on historical and future population, but it has a coarse spatial resolution of 10 km (Supplementary Table  1 ) 40 , 41 . In addition, it was estimated using total population, urbanization levels, and urban population density, and does not align well with the actual distribution of urban land 42 . Hence, we allocated the HYDE global urban population data to high-resolution urban land data. We first obtained global urban land in 2016 from He et al. 42 . Since the scenarios used in existing urban land forecasts are now dated 43 , 44 , we simulated the spatial distribution of global urban land in 2050 under each SSP at a grid-cell resolution of 1km 2 using the zoned Land Use Scenario Dynamics-urban (LUSD-urban) model 45 , 46 , 47 (Supplementary Methods 1). The simulated urban expansion area in this study was significantly correlated with that in existing datasets (Supplementary Table  6 ). We then converted the global urban land raster layers for 2016 and 2050 into vector format to characterize the spatial extent of each city. The total population within each city was then summed and the remaining HYDE urban population cells located outside urban areas were allocated to the nearest city. Assuming that the population density within an urban area was homogeneous, we calculated the total population per square kilometer for all urban areas and converted this back to raster format at a spatial resolution of 1 km 2 . The new urban population data had much lower error than the original HYDE data (Supplementary Table  7 ).

Identification of global water-scarce areas

Annual and monthly WSI values were calculated at the catchment level in 2014 and 2050 as the ratio of water withdrawals (TWW) to availability (AWR) 33 . Due to limited data availability, we combined water-scarce areas in 2014 and the urban population in 2016 to estimate current urban water scarcity. WSI for catchment i for time t as:

For each catchment defined by Masutomi et al. 48 , the total water withdrawal (TWW t,i ) equalled the sum of water withdrawals (WW t , n , i ) for each sector n (irrigation, livestock, industrial, or domestic), while the water availability equalled the sum of available water resources for catchment i ( R t , i ), inflows/outflows of water resources due to interbasin water transfer ( \(\varDelta {{{{\mathrm{W{R}}}}}}_{t,i}\) ), and water resources from each upstream catchment j (WR t , i , j ):

The changes of water resources due to interbasin water transfer were calculated based on City Water Map produced by McDonald et al. 3 . The number of water resources from upstream catchment j was calculated based on its water availability (AWR t , i , j ) and water consumption for each sector n (WC t , n , i,j ) 49 :

For areas without upstream catchments, the number of available water resources was equal to the runoff. Following Mekonnen and Hoekstra 36 , and Hofste et al. 33 , we did not consider environmental flow requirements in calculating water availability.

Annual and monthly WSI for 2014 were calculated directly based on water withdrawal, water consumption, and runoff data from AQUEDUCT3.0 (Supplementary Table  1 ). The data from AQUEDUCT3.0 were selected because they are publicly available and the PCRaster Global Water Balance (PCRGLOBWB 2) model used in the AQUADUCT 3.0 can better represent groundwater flow and available water resources in comparison with other global hydrologic models (e.g., the Water Global Assessment and Prognosis (WaterGAP) model) 33 . The annual and monthly WSI for 2050 were calculated by combining the global water withdrawal data from 2000 to 2050 provided by the National Institute of Environmental Research of Japan (NIER) 34 and global runoff data from 2005 to 2050 from CMIP6 (Supplementary Table  1 ). Water withdrawal \({{{{{\mathrm{W{W}}}}}}}_{s,m,n,i}^{2050}\) in 2050 for each sector n (irrigation, industrial, or domestic), catchment i , and month m under scenario s was calculated based on water withdrawal in 2014 ( \({{{{{\mathrm{W{W}}}}}}}_{m,n,i}^{2014}\) ):

adjusted by the mean annual change in water withdrawal from 2000 to 2050 (WWR s , m , n , i ), calculated using the global water withdrawal for 2000 ( \({{{{{\mathrm{W{W}}}}}}}_{{{{{\mathrm{NIER}}}}},m,n,i}^{2000}\) ) and 2050 ( \({{{{{\mathrm{W{W}}}}}}}_{{{{{\mathrm{NIER}}}}},s,m,n,i}^{2050}\) ) provided by the NIER 34 :

Based on the assumption of a constant ratio of water consumption to water withdrawal in each catchment, water consumption in 2050 ( \({{{{{\mathrm{W{C}}}}}}}_{s,m,n,i}^{2050}\) ) was calculated as:

where \({{{{{\mathrm{W{C}}}}}}}_{m,n,i}^{2014}\) denotes water consumption in 2014. Due to a lack of data, we specified that water withdrawal for livestock remained constant between 2014 and 2050, and used water withdrawal simulation under SSP3&RCP6.0 provided by the National Institute of Environmental Research in Japan to approximate SSP3&RCP7.0.

To estimate water availability, we calculated available water resources ( \({R}_{s,m,i}^{2041-2050}\) ) for each catchment i and month m under scenario s for the period of 2041–2050 as:

based on the amount of available water resources with 10-year ordinary least square regression from 2005 to 2014 ( \({R}_{m,i}^{{{{{\mathrm{ols}}}}},\,2005-2014}\) ) from AQUEDUCT3.0 (Supplementary Table  1 ). \({\overline{R}}_{m,i}^{2005-2014}\) and \({\overline{R}}_{s,m,i}^{2041-2050}\) denote the multi-year average of runoff (i.e., surface and subsurface) from 2005 to 2014, and from 2041 to 2050, respectively, calculated using the average values of simulation results from 10 global climate models (GCMs) (Supplementary Table  2 ).

We then identified water-scarce catchments based on the WSI. Two thresholds of 0.4 and 1.0 have been used to identify water-scarce areas from WSI (Supplementary Table  4 ). While the 0.4 threshold indicates high water stress 49 , the threshold of 1.0 has a clearer physical meaning, i.e., that water demand is equal to the available water supply and environmental flow requirements are not met 36 , 37 . We adopted the value of 1.0 as a threshold representing extreme water stress to identify water-scarce areas. The catchments with annual WSI >1.0 were identified as perennial water-scarce catchments; the catchments with annual WSI equal to or <1.0 and WSI for at least one month >1.0 were identified as seasonal water-scarce catchments.

Estimation of global urban water scarcity

Based on the corrected global urban population data and the identified water-scarce areas, we evaluated urban water scarcity at the global and national scales via a spatial overlay analysis. The urban population exposed to water scarcity in a region (e.g., the whole world or a single country) is equal to the sum of the urban population in perennial water-scarce areas and that in seasonal water-scarce areas. Limited by data availability, we used water-scarce areas in 2014 and the urban population in 2016 to estimate current urban water scarcity. Projected water-scarce areas and urban population in 2050 under four scenarios were then used to estimate future urban water scarcity. In addition, we obtained the location information of large cities (with population >1 million in 2016) from the United Nations’ World Urbanization Prospects 1 (Supplementary Table  1 ) and identified those in perennial and seasonal water-scarce areas.

Uncertainty analysis

To evaluate the uncertainty across the 10 GCMs used in this study (Supplementary Table  2 ), we identified water-scarce areas and estimated urban water scarcity using the simulated runoff from each GCM under four scenarios. To perform the uncertainty analysis, the runoff in 2050 for each GCM was calculated using the following equation:

where \({R}_{s,g,m,i}^{2050}\) denotes the runoff of catchment i in month m in 2050 for GCM g under scenario s . \({R}_{g,m,i}^{2005-2014}\) and \({R}_{s,g,m,i}^{2041-2050}\) denote the multi-year average runoff from 2005 to 2014, and from 2041 to 2050, respectively, calculated using the simulation results from GCM g . Using the runoff for each GCM, the WSI in 2050 for each catchment was recalculated, water-scarce areas were identified, and the urban population exposed to water scarcity was estimated.

Contribution analysis

Based on the approach used by McDonald et al. 2 and Munia et al. 50 , we quantified the contribution of socioeconomic factors (i.e., water demand and urban population) and climatic factors (i.e., water availability) to the changes in global urban water scarcity from 2016 to 2050. To assess the contribution of socioeconomic factors ( \({{{{{\mathrm{Co{n}}}}}}}_{s,{{{{\mathrm{SE}}}}}}\) ), we calculated global urban water scarcity in 2050 while varying demand and population and holding catchment runoff constant ( \({{{{{\mathrm{UW{S}}}}}}}_{s,{{{{\mathrm{SE}}}}}}^{2050}\) ). Conversely, to assess the contribution of climate change ( \(Co{n}_{s,CC}\) ), we calculated scarcity while varying runoff and holding urban population and water demand constant ( \({{{{{\mathrm{UW{S}}}}}}}_{s,{{{{\mathrm{CC}}}}}}^{2050}\) ). Socioeconomic and climatic contributions were then calculated as:

Feasibility analysis of potential solutions to urban water scarcity

Potential solutions to urban water scarcity involve two aspects: increasing water availability and reducing water demand 2 . Approaches to increasing water availability include groundwater exploitation, seawater desalination, reservoir construction, and inter-basin water transfer; while approaches to reduce water demand include water-use efficiency measures (e.g., new cultivars for improving agricultural water productivity, sprinkler or drip irrigation for improving water-use efficiency, water-recycling facilities for improving domestic and industrial water-use intensity), limiting population growth, and virtual water trade 2 , 3 , 18 , 32 . To find the best ways to address urban water scarcity, we assessed the feasibility of these potential solutions for each large city (Supplementary Fig.  2 ).

First, we divided these solutions into seven groups according to scenario settings and the scale of implementation of each solution (Supplementary Fig.  2 ). Among the solutions assessed, water-use efficiency improvement, limiting population growth, and climate change mitigation were included in the simulation of water demand and water availability under the ScenarioMIP SSPs&RCPs simulations 34 . Here, we considered the measures within SSP1&RCP2.6 which included the lowest growth in population, irrigated area, crop intensity, and greenhouse gas emissions; and the largest improvements in irrigation, industrial, and municipal water-use efficiency 34 .

We then evaluated the feasibility of the seven groups of solutions according to the characteristics of water-scarce cities (Supplementary Fig.  2 ). Of the 526 large cities (with population >1 million in 2016 according to the United Nations’ World Urbanization Prospects), we identified those facing perennial or seasonal water scarcity under at least one scenario by 2050. We then selected the cities that no longer faced water scarcity under SSP1&RCP2.6 where the internal scenario assumptions around water-use efficiency, population growth, and climate change were sufficient to mitigate water scarcity. Following McDonald et al. 2 , 3 and Wada et al. 18 , we assumed that desalination can be a potential solution for coastal cities (distance from coastline <100 km) and groundwater exploitation can be feasible for cities where the groundwater table has not significantly declined. For cities in catchments facing seasonal water scarcity and with suitable topography, reservoir construction was identified as a potential solution. Inter-basin water transfer was identified as a potential solution for a city if nearby basins (i.e., in the same country, <1000 km away [the distance of the longest water transfer project in the world]) were not subject to water scarcity and had sufficient water resources to address the water scarcity for the city. Domestic virtual water trade was identified as a potential solution for a city if it was located in a country without national scale water scarcity. International water transfer or virtual water trade was identified as a feasible solution for cities in middle and high-income countries. Based on the above assumptions, we identified potential solutions to water scarcity in each city (see Supplementary Table  1 for the data used).

Data availability

All the data created in this study are openly available and the download information of supplementary data can be found in Github repositories with the identifier https://github.com/zfliu-bnu/Urban-water-scarcity . Other data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. N. Hanasaki (National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan) and Dr. Rutger W. Hofste (World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, USA) for providing global water demand/availability data. This work was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (Grant No. 2019QZKK0405) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41871185 & 41971270). It was also supported by the project from the State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, China.

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Chunyang He, Zhifeng Liu, Jianguo Wu, Xinhao Pan & Zihang Fang

School of Natural Resources, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

School of Life Sciences and School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

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Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

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C.H., Z.L., J.W., and B.B. designed the study and planned the analysis. Z.L., X.P., Z.F., and J.L. did the data analysis. C.H., Z.L., and B.B. drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the interpretation of findings, provided revisions to the manuscript, and approved the final manuscript.

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He, C., Liu, Z., Wu, J. et al. Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions. Nat Commun 12 , 4667 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25026-3

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Water and Climate Change

Climate change is primarily a water crisis. We feel its impacts through worsening floods, rising sea levels, shrinking ice fields, wildfires and droughts.

However, water can fight climate change. Sustainable water management is central to building the resilience of societies and ecosystems and to reducing carbon emissions. Everyone has a role to play – actions at the individual and household levels are vital.

The issue explained

Water and climate change are inextricably linked. Extreme weather events are making water more scarce, more unpredictable, more polluted or all three. These impacts throughout the water cycle threaten sustainable development, biodiversity, and people’s access to water and sanitation. 

Flooding and rising sea levels can contaminate land and water resources with saltwater or faecal matter, and cause damage to water and sanitation infrastructure, such as waterpoints, wells, toilets and wastewater treatment facilities. 

Glaciers, ice caps and snow fields are rapidly disappearing. Meltwater feeds many of the great river systems. Volatility in the cryosphere can affect the regulation of freshwater resources for vast numbers of people in lowland areas.

Droughts and wildfires are destabilizing communities and triggering civil unrest and migration in many areas. Destruction of vegetation and tree cover exacerbates soil erosion and reduces groundwater recharge, increasing water scarcity and food insecurity.

Growing demand for water increases the need for energy-intensive water pumping , transportation, and treatment, and has contributed to the degradation of critical water-dependent carbon sinks such as peatlands. Water-intensive agriculture for food production, particularly meat, and for growing crops used as biofuels, can further exacerbate water scarcity.

The way forward

Climate policymakers must put water at the heart of action plans . Sustainable water management helps society adapt to climate change by building resilience, protecting health and saving lives. It also mitigates climate change itself by protecting ecosystems and reducing carbon emissions from water and sanitation transportation and treatment.

Politicians must cooperate across national borders to balance the water needs of communities, industry, agriculture and ecosystems.

Innovative financing for water resource management wil l be needed to help attract investment, create jobs, and support governments in fulfilling their water and climate goals.

Sustainable, affordable and scalable water solutions include:

• Improving carbon storage. Peatlands store at least twice as much carbon as all of Earth’s forests. Mangrove soils can sequester up to three or four times more carbon than terrestrial soils. Protecting and expanding these types of environments can have a major impact on climate change.
• Protecting natural buffers. Coastal mangroves and wetlands are effective and inexpensive natural barriers to flooding, extreme weather events and erosion, as the vegetation helps regulate water flow and binds the soil in flood plains, river banks and coastlines.
• Harvesting rainwater. Rainwater capture is particularly useful in regions with uneven rainfall distribution to build resilience to shocks and ensure supplies for dry periods. Techniques include rooftop capture for small-scale use and surface dams to slow run-off to reduce soil erosion and increase aquifer recharge.
• Adopting climate-smart agriculture. Using conservation techniques to improve organic matter to increase soil moisture retention; drip irrigation; reducing post-harvest losses and food waste; and, transforming waste into a source of nutrients or biofuels/biogas.
• Reusing wastewater. Unconventional water resources, such as regulated treated wastewater, can be used for irrigation and industrial and municipal purposes. Safely managed wastewater is an affordable and sustainable source of water, energy, nutrients and other recoverable materials.
• Harnessing groundwater. In many places, groundwater is over-used and polluted; in other places, it is an unknown quantity. Exploring, protecting and sustainably using groundwater is central to adapting to climate change and meeting the needs of a growing population.

Facts and Figures

• Only 0.5% of water on Earth is useable and available freshwater – and climate change is dangerously affecting that supply. Over the past 20 years, terrestrial water storage – including soil moisture, snow and ice – has dropped at a rate of 1 cm per year, with major ramifications for water security. ( WMO, 2021 )  
• By 2050, the number of people at risk of floods will increase from its current level of 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion. In the early to mid-2010s, 1.9 billion people, or 27% of the global population, lived in potential severely water-scarce areas. In 2050, this number will increase to 2.7 to 3.2 billion people. ( United Nations, 2020 )  
• Over a fifth of the world’s basins have recently experienced either rapid increases in their surface water area indicative of flooding, a growth in reservoirs and newly inundated land; or rapid declines in surface water area indicating drying up of lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, floodplains and seasonal water bodies. ( UN-Water, 2021 )  
• The ambition of new climate change mitigation pledges for 2030 need to be four times higher to limit global warming to 2°C and seven times higher to get on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C. ( UNEP, 2021 )   
• The current Arctic sea-ice cover (both annual and late summer) is at its lowest level since at least 1850 and is projected to reach practically ice-free conditions at its summer minimum at least once before 2050. ( IPCC, 2021 ) 

• Scarcity Of Water

Water Scarcity

Scarcity is basically defined as the state of being scarce or in short supply; shortage.

What is water scarcity?

Water Scarcity signifies the shortage of water, an imbalance between the demand and supply of water, also a good quality of water i.e. potable water .

Water is a very important resource, we use water for almost every activity like drinking, washing, cooking, cleaning, etc. This precious resource is largely getting wasted due to human carelessness and lack of planning and hence we are facing the scarcity of water. According to the United Nations, a person needs a minimum of 50 litres of water per day for his basic needs of hygiene, cooking and drinking. But there is a large population which fails to receive this small quantity of water and hence most of the population is getting affected by water scarcity.

Insufficient intake of water causes kidney problems, constipation, and various mental changes. Blood pressure and heat flow in our body are maintained by water. The usable water present on earth, therefore, needs to be saved in order to live a healthy and sustainable life.

Table of Contents

Causes of water scarcity, recommended videos, water conservation.

• Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs
• Even though about 71% of earth’s surface is covered with water, most of this water is not fit for consumption. Freshwater is the only source of useful water which is present in very small quantity thus limiting the accessibility to potable water.
• Rainwater is an important source of fresh water. It needs to be harvested so that it can be put to use.
• Human society is overusing water and in many cases wasting it.
• Loss of water due to leakages, excessive use of water for washing purposes, taps left open after use are some common sights that form the basis of the problem of water scarcity.
• Due to the large increase in population, the demand is much more than supply.
• Due to industrialization and urbanization has hugely increased the consumption of water.

Conservation of water is needed with immediate effect to sustain life on earth. If the scarcity of water increases there will be a point when the survival of human species, Homo sapiens will be under threat. We need to develop habits that emphasize on saving water. Water pollution should be checked as an entire aquatic ecosystem is dependent on this.

For More Information On Conservation Of Water, Watch The Below Video:

This article shows the importance of water in our daily lives. All the living organisms require water for various biological processes and hence water is a necessary element for sustaining life on earth. But water is not the only necessity to sustain life, there is a scarcity of products for living beings.

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

What do you mean by scarcity of water.

Water scarcity either indicate scarcity of availability due to physical scarcity or scarcity of access due to the lack of daily supply by institutions or due to a lack of sufficient infrastructure. Any continent is now plagued by water shortage.

How does water scarcity affect the environment?

The resultant overuse of water associated with water shortages, mostly located in irrigation agriculture, is detrimental to the environment in a variety of respects, including increased salinity, nitrogen degradation, and the depletion of floodplains and wetlands.

What are the impacts of water scarcity?

In these four wide fields, wellness, hunger, education, and insecurity, the consequences of water shortages can be clustered together. Dying off, people. Less water also suggests that sewage does not flow, and mosquitoes breed on still (stagnant) polluted water like most insects. Deadly malaria and other diseases are the result.

How is water wasted?

When brushing their teeth, shaving or doing the dishes, one of the most common ways people waste water is by keeping the water flowing. As soon as you begin cleaning, shaving or doing the dishes, switching the tap off. Fill one sink with clean rinsing water and one with soapy water for cleaning the dishes.

What are the economic impacts of water scarcity?

In a world economy, the price of exchanged goods and services is influenced by water shortage. Liu et al. (2009) indicates that for countries that manufacture water-intensive products, water shortages will result in trade losses. When, however these behaviours are subsidized, the distortion is exacerbated even.

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Press release

Imminent risk of a global water crisis, warns the UN World Water Development Report 2023

Globally, 2 billion people (26% of the population) do not have safe drinking water and 3.6 billion (46%) lack access to safely managed sanitation, according to the report, published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water and released today at the UN 2023 Water Conference in New York.

Between two and three billion people experience water shortages for at least one month per year, posing severe risks to livelihoods, notably through food security and access to electricity. The global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to double from 930 million in 2016 to 1.7–2.4 billion people in 2050. The growing incidence of extreme and prolonged droughts is also stressing ecosystems, with dire consequences for both plant and animal species.

There is an urgent need to establish strong international mechanisms to prevent the global water crisis from spiraling out of control. Water is our common future and it is essential to act together to share it equitably and manage it sustainably.

Protecting and preserving this precious resource for future generations depends on partnerships. The smart management and conservation of the world’s water resources means bringing together governments, businesses, scientists, civil society and communities – including indigenous communities – to design and deliver concrete solutions. 

There is much to do and time is not on our side. This report shows our ambition and we must now come together and accelerate action. This is our moment to make a difference.

International cooperation: the key to access to water for all

Nearly every water-related intervention involves some kind of cooperation. Growing crops require shared irrigation systems among farmers. Providing safe and affordable water to cities and rural areas is only possible through a communal management of water-supply and sanitation systems. And cooperation between these urban and rural communities is essential to maintaining both food security and uphold farmer incomes.

Managing rivers and aquifers crossing international borders makes matters all the more complex. While cooperation over transboundary basins and aquifers has been shown to deliver many benefits beyond water security, including opening additional diplomatic channels, only 6 of the world’s 468 internationally shared aquifers are subject to a formal cooperative agreement.

On this World Water Day, the United Nations calls for boosting international cooperation over how water is used and managed. This is the only way to prevent a global water crisis in the coming decades.

Partnerships and people’s participation increase benefits

Environmental services, such as pollution control and biodiversity, are among the shared benefits most often highlighted in the report, along with data/information-sharing and co-financing opportunities. For example, ‘water funds’ are financing schemes that bring together downstream users, like cities, businesses, and utilities, to collectively invest in upstream habitat protection and agricultural land management to improve overall water quality and/or quantity.

Mexico’s Monterrey Water Fund, launched in 2013, has maintained water quality, reduced flooding, improved infiltration and rehabilitated natural habitats through co-financing. The success of similar approaches in Sub-Saharan Africa, including the Tana-Nairobi river watershed, which supplies 95% of the Nairobi’s freshwater and 50% of Kenya’s electricity, illustrate the global potential of such partnerships.

Inclusive stakeholder participation also promotes buy-in and ownership. Involving the end-users in planning and implementing water systems creates services that better match the needs and resources of poor communities, and increases public acceptance and ownership. It also fosters accountability and transparency. In displacement camps in the Gedo region of Somalia, residents elect water committees that operate and maintain the waterpoints that supply tens of thousands of people. Committee members partner with local water authorities of the host communities to share and manage water resources.

The United Nations World Water Development Report is published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water and its production is coordinated by the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme. The report gives insight into the main trends concerning the state, use and management of freshwater and sanitation, based on work by Members and Partners of UN-Water. Launched in conjunction with World Water Day, the report provides decision-makers with knowledge and tools to formulate and implement sustainable water policies. It also offers best practice examples and in-depth analyses to stimulate ideas and actions for better stewardship in the water sector and beyond.

Press contacts

UNESCO : François Wibaux, [email protected] , +33145680746 

UN-Water:  Daniella Bostrom Couffe, [email protected] , +41796609284

UNESCO WWAP:  Simona Gallese, [email protected] , +390755911026

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Water Conservation – Water, A precious resource

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WATER SCARCITY

Dec 21, 2019

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WATER SCARCITY. Water stress and Water scarcity. occur when the demand for water exceeds the available amount during a certain period or when poor quality restricts its use. The UN states by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity,.

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Water stress and Water scarcity • occur when the demand for water exceeds the available amount during a certain period or when poor quality restricts its use.

The UN states by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, Two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions

"water stress" is when annual water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per person per year, according to the Falkenmark Water Stress Indicator

PHYSICAL SCARCITYWhen consumption exceeds 60% of the usable supply Physical access to water is limited. It is when the demand outstrips the lands ability to provide the needed water. For the most part, dry parts of the world or arid regions are most often associated with physical scarcity.

ECONOMIC SCARCITYWhere a country has sufficient water resources but additional storage and transport facilities are required making it expensive • When a population does not have the necessary monetary means to utilize an adequate source of water. It is about a unequal distribution of resources for many reasons, including political and ethnic conflict.

Task • Decide if the following supply issues are environmentally or human induced.

SUPPLY ISSUES

Inaccessible or Out of Reach India gets 90% of its rainfall during the monsoon season and at other times rainfall over much of the country is very low. Sub-Saharan Countries rely on large and expensive water development projects.

No infrastructure The addition of water to areas where it is insufficient for adequate crop growth. – types can range from total flooding such as in paddy fields to drip irrigation where precise measurements are distributed to each plant.

Rain: About three-quarters of the annual rainfall occurs in areas containing less than one-third of the world’s population, whereas two-thirds of the world’s population live in the areas receiving only one-quarter of the world’s annual rainfall

Climate scientists say that the greenhouse effect is accelerating the global water cycle. "It's like the rich get richer scenario where the wet places will get wetter and the dry places will get a lot drier because the conveyor belt is speeding up between those two places.” Source ABC Science: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/04/27/3488816.htm Evapo-transpiration: The water supply depends on several factors in the water cycle including evaporation and transpiration rates.

Fossilized Aquifers are rocks that hold water. They provide an important store of water that regulates the hydrological cycle and maintains river flow. Their resources are being depleted.

Wetlands (land with soil that is permanently flooded) During the past centaury half of the worlds natural wetlands have dried up.

Ground water pollution has been on the increase and can happen naturally such as naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater pumped up through tube wells in Bangladesh. After realising that 85 million of the country’s 125 million population will be affected, Bangladesh has sunk millions of wells in the last 30 years in order to provide a supply of drinking water free from the bacterial contamination of surface water. Pollution

Water is one of the most sensitive and unsolvable problems in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. It is likely that disputes over scarce water resources will fuel and increase armed conflicts. DEMAND FOR WATER

POPULATION INCREASE Population, urbanization and industrialization have increased the use of water in these sectors. As world population and industry has increased the use of water has acceleratedand this is projected to continue. By 2025 global availibility of fresh water may drop to by 25% of the 2000 figure.

Agriculture Agriculture is the largest user consuming almost two-thirds of all water drawn from rivers, lakes and ground water. Scince 1960, water use for crop irrigation has risen from 60-70%. Industry uses about 20% of available water, and the municipal sector uses 10% Exam question: Describe two pollutants which are causes of unsafe drinking water (4 marks)

Current Water Stress

Water-Stress Effects • Amount • Timing • seasonality • drought • flood • Quality • - salinity • nutrients • temperature • toxins • pathogens • sediments

Exam question: • ‘The factors affecting patterns and trends in physical water scarcity are environmental rather than human.’ Discuss this statement.

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Spain Is Thirsty. Here’s How It Gets Water.

To supply water for a number of needs, from tourism to agriculture, the country and other dry nations are increasingly relying on desalination plants that convert seawater into fresh water.

A desalination plant in Torrevieja, Spain. The company that built the plant says that it can supply water for 1.6 million people. Credit... Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York Times

Supported by

By Stanley Reed and Rachel Chaundler

Stanley Reed, who covers energy and environmental issues from London, visited Torrevieja, Spain. Rachel Chaundler reported from Zaragoza, Spain.

• Aug. 12, 2024

On a fiery hot day in late June, tourists filled the cafes and hotel rooms along Spain’s Mediterranean coast, including in Torrevieja, a small city of tightly stacked apartment blocks running along a curved beach.

The seasonal population surge in this dry, sun-baked region might strain water resources were it not for a set of buildings overlooking a pink-tinged lagoon nearby.

These low-slung structures house a vast network of pipes, pumps and tanks in a plant that performs a kind of alchemy crucial to the economy of this part of Spain: drawing huge volumes of water from the sea, removing the salt and creating more than 60 million gallons of fresh water a day.

Acciona, a Spanish company that built the plant, says the facility can supply water for 1.6 million people through the process known as desalination. For much of the year, though, the output is largely used to nurture oranges, lemons and other crops for consumers in Northern Europe.

But when the crowds of tourists arrive in the summer, more water is diverted into the city’s pipes for showering and other domestic use, said Ana Boix, the deputy manager of the plant. “We have a very high-quality water from a source of supply that is endless,” she said.

The Torrevieja plant is the largest of its kind in Europe, and similar plants dot the Spanish coastline. They have helped to enable rampant coastal development in parched areas and to support an agricultural industry that is considered among the world’s most proficient at managing water.

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BASF India Limited (“BASF”) and NAAM Foundation successfully complete Water Conservation Project in Hingoli; Over 5000 rural families and agricultural community to benefit

• BASF and NAAM Foundation celebrated successful completion of rural water conservation project in Hingoli district of Maharashtra, and hand over the newly developed resources to the local community.
• Project will benefit over 5000 rural families and agricultural community in and around three villages: Bhingi, Ambala and Waranga Masai, making them water-secure, all year around.

Mumbai, Maharashtra – August 07, 2024: Water is the source of life and millions in India face the harsh reality of water scarcity every day. To improve the conditions for the agricultural communities in Bhindi, Ambala and Waranga Masai, BASF India Limited, with NAAM Foundation as its implementation partner, have successfully completed a water conservation project, where existing water bodies have been widened and innovative water conservation and rainwater harvesting systems are implemented.

The project was implemented by NAAM Foundation, a renowned NGO founded by  popular actors Mr. Nana Patekar and Mr. Makarand Anaspure, which has the rich experience of working with over 1030 water- scarce villages and assisting them in conserving water, improving water tables and effectively harvesting rainwater. The project included construction of farm ponds and water conservation work in the three villages. The project implementation was greeted with enthusiastic participation and support from the village communities. The project included deepening and widening of water canal by 3 km in Bhingi, rejuvenation of percolation tank in Ambala and construction of farm pond along with deepening and widening of water canal in Waranga Masai. These measures have successfully built access to clean water resources, creating a reliable supply of water for the villages.

Today, to inaugurate and handover the project and its resources to the local community, a hand-over event was held and attended by Alexander Gerding, Managing Director, BASF India; Sunita Sule, Head of CSR and Country Development, BASF India; Giridhar Ranuva, Business Director, BASF Agricultural Solutions India, along with Malhar Patekar, Co-founder and Director of NAAM Foundation.

Speaking about the project, Alexander Gerding said: “We are delighted to hand over this impactful water conservation project in association with the NAAM Foundation, to the community of beneficiaries. Access to clean and sustainable water is a fundamental right for all individuals. As always, BASF India Ltd remains committed to supporting projects that promote sustainable development in water conservation, to create a positive impact on the communities that we operate in. This partnership with the NAAM Foundation aligns perfectly with our commitment. The hand-over of this successful project symbolizes our shared vision and dedication towards creating a water-secure future. I hope more villages get inspired by the success of this project and join the movement in building better water access for themselves in the near future.”

Malhar Patekar commented on the project: “The NAAM Foundation has always been dedicated to addressing the water crisis and working towards water conservation in water-scarce regions. We are grateful for the partnership with BASF India, which shares our vision of a water-secure future. Together, we will make a significant difference in the lives of the people in these three villages, helping them combat water scarcity and build a sustainable future. I hope this project inspires more villages in the vicinity to work together and conserve water.”

"Farming is the biggest job on Earth, and we understand the importance of water in farming, and believe that access to clean and sustainable water is crucial for agricultural communities. This partnership with the NAAM Foundation not only aligns with our commitment to sustainable development and water conservation, but also aims to positively impact the lives of thousands of farming families in Maharashtra. By creating a water-secure future, we hope to support farmers in their efforts to sustainably cultivate the land and contribute to the growth of their communities,” said Giridhar Ranuva.

About BASF in India

BASF has successfully partnered India’s progress for more than 130 years. As of the end of 2023, BASF had 2,335 employees in India with 8 production sites and 40 offices throughout the country. The Innovation Campus Mumbai and the Coatings Technical Center in Mangalore are both part of BASF’s global technology platform. In 2023, BASF registered sales of approximately €2.4 billion to customers in India. Further information is available on  www.basf.com/in . 

About BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division

Everything we do, we do for the love of farming. Farming is fundamental to provide enough healthy and affordable food for a rapidly growing population, while reducing environmental impacts. That’s why we are working with partners and experts to integrate sustainability criteria into all business decisions. With €900 million in 2023, we continue to invest in a strong R&D pipeline, combining innovative thinking with practical action in the field. Our solutions are purpose-designed for different crop systems. Connecting seeds and traits, crop protection products, digital tools, and sustainability approaches, to help deliver the best possible outcomes for farmers, growers and our other stakeholders along the value chain. With teams in the lab, field, office and in production, we do everything in our power to build a sustainable future for agriculture. In 2023, our division generated sales of €10.1 billion. For more information, please visit www.agriculture.basf.com or our social media channels.

At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. Around 112,000 employees in the BASF Group contribute to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio comprises six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of €68.9 billion in 2023. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the United States. Further information at www.basf.com .

News Release

BASF India in partnership with NAAM Foundation