Making matters worse, we have entered a vicious cycle in which the interaction of the water crisis, global warming, and the loss of biodiversity and natural capital exacerbates all three. Wetland erosion and lost soil moisture risk turning some of the planet’s great carbon stores into new sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, with devastating consequences for the climate.
The world’s water crisis can no longer be ignored. Unless we manage water properly, we will neither tackle climate change nor meet most of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Last year’s unprecedented floods, droughts, cyclonic storms and heatwaves showed what is coming. But while such disasters garner plenty of attention, the underlying water crisis does not. Water-related challenges — whether there is too much or too little, or whether it is dirty and unsafe — are already fuelling chronic food and health insecurity in entire regions. Every 80 seconds, a child under five dies from a disease caused by polluted water; and hundreds of millions more are growing up stunted and with diminished lifetime prospects.
