UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 (APP): The world has moved beyond a water crisis and into a state of global water bankruptcy, according to a new flagship report released Tuesday by UN researchers.<\/p>\n
For decades, they said scientists, policymakers and the media warned of a \u201cglobal water crisis,\u201d implying temporary shock \u2013 followed by recovery.<\/p>\n
What is now emerging in many regions, however, is a persistent shortage whereby water systems can no longer realistically return to their historical baselines.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor much of the world, \u2018normal\u2019 is gone,\u201d said Kaveh Madani, Director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not to kill hope but to encourage action and an honest admission of failure today to protect and enable tomorrow,\u201d he told a press briefing in New York on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Madani emphasized that the findings do not suggest worldwide failure \u2013 but there are enough bankrupt or near-bankrupt systems, interconnected through trade, migration, and geopolitical dependencies, that the global risk landscape has been fundamentally altered.<\/p>\n
The burdens fall disproportionately on smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, low-income urban residents, and women and youth, while the benefits of overuse often accrue to more powerful actors.<\/p>\n
The report introduces water bankruptcy as a condition defined by both insolvency and irreversibility.<\/p>\n
Insolvency refers to withdrawing and polluting water beyond renewable inflows and safe depletion limits.<\/p>\n
Irreversibility refers to the damage to key parts of water-related natural capital, such as wetlands and lakes, that makes restoration of the system to its initial conditions infeasible.<\/p>\n
But all is not lost: comparing water action to finance, Madani said that bankruptcy is not the end of action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the start of a structured recovery plan: you stop the bleeding, protect essential services, restructure unsustainable claims, and invest in rebuilding,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
The world is rapidly depleting its natural \u201cwater savings accounts\u201d, according to the study: more than half the world\u2019s large lakes have declined since the early 1990\u2019s, while around 35 per cent of natural wetlands have been lost since 1970, Madani said.<\/p>\n
The human toll is already significant. Nearly three-quarters of the world\u2019s population live in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure.<\/p>\n
Around four billion people experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year, while drought impacts cost an estimated $307 billion annually.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we continue to manage these failures as temporary \u2018crises\u2019 with short-term fixes, we will only deepen the ecological damage and fuel social conflict,\u201d Madani warned.<\/p>\n
The report calls for a transition from crisis response to bankruptcy management, grounded in honesty about the irreversibly of losses, protection of remaining water resources, and policies that match hydrological reality rather than past norms.<\/p>\n