Overview

It is increasingly evident that the current use, development and management of the planet’s water resources and the services they provide are unsustainable. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water.

• Between 1990 and 2010, more than 2 billion people gained access to basic drinking water, but 780 million people still remain without it and many more remain without safe and sustainable sanitation;
• Over 1.7 billion people live today in river basins where water use exceeds recharge, leading to the desiccation of rivers and depletion of groundwater;
• As countries develop and populations grow and urbanize, their demand for water is projected to increase by 55 percent by 2050;
• Two-thirds of the world’s population could be living in water-stressed countries by 2025 if current consumption patterns continue.

At the same time, climate change and the degradation of ecosystems due to human activity are expected to further exacerbate extreme events such as floods and droughts. These trends will add further stress on an already difficult situation, increasing the risk of conflicts over water.

To sustainably achieve poverty eradication, food security, and resilience to natural and human-induced disasters, water productivity needs to be enhanced, appropriate infrastructure developed, an integrated approach to water resources management implemented, water governance systems improved at all levels and the ability of ecosystems to support sustainable water management, including the aquatic biological resources that are dependent on water, protected and restored. Examples of the positive impact of water on economic growth and poverty reduction include irrigation, fisheries, aquaculture, and hydropower as well as flood management.

Water abstraction for irrigation and food production constitutes one of the greatest pressures on freshwater resources. Agricultural water withdrawal accounts for 44 percent of total water withdrawal in OECD countries, 74 percent in the BRICs and over 90 percent in the least developed countries. With global population growth driving food demand up by 60 percent by 2050, more water will be needed for irrigation, in particular in regions already suffering from water scarcity.

Key challenges

While the MDG drinking water target has already been achieved, the current MDG framework did not adequately address the broader water agenda, including inter-sectoral competition, wastewater management, living aquatic resources and issues of water quality. Recent results from a survey of 130 countries show that there has been widespread adoption of integrated approaches to water management worldwide, but that these approaches find difficulties in their application on the ground.

Progress towards improved water governance and efficient water use has been uneven across countries and regions, constrained by limited implementation capacity and stakeholder participation as well as by suboptimal institutional arrangements. This has resulted in significant challenges where irrigation, rainwater harvesting and investment in freshwater ecosystem services are concerned, with direct impacts on food production and food security.

In some regions of the world, the productive potential of water resources remains untapped due to lack of focused investment, as in sub-Saharan Africa. Water-related disasters can cause losses of up to 14 percent of GDP due to a lack of storage and regulating capability.