The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH) recently released a report saying that the world is entering an era of “global water bankruptcy,” with rivers, lakes, and aquifers depleting faster than nature can replenish them, saying decades of overuse, pollution, environmental destruction, and climate pressure had pushed many water systems so beyond the point of recovery that a new classification was required.
“Water stress and water crisis are no longer sufficient descriptions of the world’s new water realities,” read the report.
These terms were “framed as alerts about a future that could still be avoided” when the world had already moved into a “new phase,” it said.
The report proposes the alternative term “water bankruptcy” – a state in which long-term water use exceeds resupply and damages nature so severely that previous levels cannot realistically be restored.
The world has lost enormous proportions of wetlands, with roughly 410 million hectares – nearly the size of the European Union – disappearing over the past five decades.
Groundwater depletion is another sign of the bankruptcy, as around 70 percent of major aquifers used for drinking water and irrigation show long-term declines with rising “day zero” crises — when demand exceeds supply – the “urban face” of this reality.
Climate change was compounding the problem, spurring the loss of more than 30 percent of the world’s glacier mass since 1970 and the seasonal meltwater relied upon by hundreds of millions of people.
The report draws on existing data and statistics and does not provide an exhaustive record of all water problems, but attempts instead to redefine the situation.
The report “captures a hard truth: the world’s water crisis has crossed a point of no return,” Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the WaterAid charity said.
As the world enters an era of water bankruptcy, Filipinos and their communities will have to take stock of our water resources to evaluate whether we are also approaching that dire state, and if we can, maybe do something about it while we still can.
If any form of bankruptcy can be avoided, immediate action must be taken.*
