COURTHOUSE NEWS: Milestone report warns of urgent water crisis, offers solutions

A commission recommended communities across the globe take steps to address a water crisis that threatens the world’s food security and economic stability.

By Lily Roby, Courthouse News Service

The Global Commission on the Economics of Water warns the world is currently in a water crisis that will only worsen if urgent steps aren’t taken to address the exacerbating factors.

The global commission comprised of more than 20 people worked over the course of two years to complete a report, titled “The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good,” which was released Wednesday. The project was inspired by prior reports on the economics of climate change and the economics of biodiversity.

“For the first time in human history, we changed the origin of rainfall,” commission member Xavier Leflaive said in an email. “Droughts and floods are local episodes of a hydrological cycle that was pushed out of balance through a combination of climate change, land use change and mismanagement of freshwater resources. No country, economy, (or) society is shielded from the consequences.”

The deathly combination of deforestation and soil moisture loss has exhausted the planet’s largest stores of carbon, rapidly increasing the rate at which global warming occurs and causing heat waves. These heat waves increase general moisture loss and drying events, resulting in wildfires. All this means that the world is now suffering from water scarcity and a destabilized water cycle.

Damaged freshwater and land ecosystems, along with the continued contamination of water also mean that humans should no longer count on continuous freshwater availability for the future, as the water crisis puts at risk more than half of the world’s food production by 2050 and threatens an average of 8% loss of gross domestic product globally. According to the report, already more than 1,000 children under five years old die each day from illnesses due to unsafe water and sanitation, and over half the world’s food production is in areas experiencing drying and unstable water.

The report’s authors argue that in order to live a ‘’dignified life,” which includes not just water for drinking, but also for maintaining good hygiene, washing clothing, cooking and more, humans require approximately 4,000 liters or 1,056 gallons of water a day. Very few areas in the world have direct access to that amount of water, meaning that many communities are dependent on water from other places and access to water is incredibly unequal internationally.

The planet will continue to feel these increasing impacts of a broken hydrological cycle unless drastic steps are taken, such as valuing water as a global common good, explains the report.

“The global water crisis is a tragedy, but is also an opportunity to transform the economics of water and, to start, by valuing water properly, so as to recognize its scarcity and the many benefits it delivers,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization and a member of the commission, in a press release. Proper pricing of water as a scarce good would set a more even playing field for countries to access water equally, the report proposes.

The report also highlights the importance of focusing water conservation on not just “blue water,” which is water in rivers, lakes and aquifers, but also “green water,” which is moisture stored in soil and vegetation. Green water generates approximately half of the rainfall over land and is the source of the majority of our fresh water. Maintaining a stable supply of green water is linked to stable patterns of rainfall and mitigates climate change.

The report’s authors recommend five missions to transform the operation of food systems, protect green water, establish a circular water economy that intelligently uses wastewater, utilize AI to develop new clean energy initiatives and ensure no child dies from unsafe water by 2030. New ways of governing water nationally and internationally, like redirecting harmful subsidies and improving global water data infrastructure, will achieve these missions, the reports’ authors say.

According to the commission, recognizing the water cycle as a global common good requires action in every country and collaboration across nations and cultures — a strenuous effort, but one that will have substantial benefits in the end. Leflaive explained that every area on the planet is affected by water scarcity, so it will take the effort of every single community in order to heal from the damages and find ways to cope with the water crisis.

“Individuals can do many things, in particular in affluent countries or communities. Changing food diets is one, with potentially massive gains from a green and blue water perspective,” Leflaive said. “The report emphasizes the case for collective action.”