Causes of Water Scarcity

The direct cause of water scarcity is the insatiable need for freshwater in modern industry, agriculture and extractive technologies. The further dependence of these sectors on energy generation, itself water intensive, compounds the demand.

Population growth, climate change and aspirational lifestyles act as powerful catalysts on this thirsty combination, ensuring no respite from unsustainable demand for a finite resource. And widespread political cowardice denies sufficient protection to the world’s most precious commodity.

Our Global Water Crisis, Explained – an overview of the causes and solutions to global water scarcity, with case studies from California and the Amazon
from Our Changing Climate

Agriculture is the dominant underlying cause of water scarcity, accounting for 69% of all global freshwater use, rising to over 90% in South Asia. The dynamic expansion of food grain production over the last 50 years has been achieved through high-yielding seed technologies which require substantial input of chemicals and water, especially for wheat and rice. The globalisation of meat and dairy-based diets has compounded the water dependency of agriculture.

The consequence has been the over-extraction of freshwater and pollution of surface water that together create scarcity. Surface waters are polluted by run-off of chemicals used in farming, as well as untreated industrial and household wastewater in cities. This is an acute problem in less developed countries where environmental regulations remain inadequate or unenforced. About 80% of global wastewater is returned to nature untreated.

Over-extraction has been most serious in India where outdated laws and complacent politicians have indulged landowners in unlimited and even free access to water, underpinned by guaranteed prices for their produce.

The energy sector is responsible for 10% of global water withdrawals, largely for cooling in thermal and nuclear power generation. Freshwater now quenches the voracious thirst of fracking, as well as more traditional technologies for extraction of coal, oil and gas.

Population growth adds impetus to all of these drivers of water scarcity. World population is projected to grow from 7.8 billion to 9.7 billion by 2050; most of this growth will occur in the largest cities of developing countries, many of which are already logistically overwhelmed by unregulated development.

Whilst cities were often founded in proximity to good freshwater supplies, the benevolence of nature rarely extends to megacity concentrations of over ten million people. The Nature Conservancy estimates that 36% of cities will face water crisis by 2050.

Who is to blame for the City of Chennai’s water crisis? – living without water in a mega-city and trying to explain the cause
from ITV News

Politicians cannot excuse their inadequate response to water scarcity on grounds of ambiguous environmental science. The symptoms of unsustainable consumption of a critical natural resource are explicit.

In parts of India, the water table has fallen catastrophically since the so-called Green Revolution; in the Punjab, groundwater is projected to be exhausted by 2039.

A quarter of the world’s rivers fail to complete their natural journey to the sea, including the once mighty Yellow River in China and the Murray-Darling River in Australia. Where rivers do flow, pollution often destroys fish and aquatic life which once provided protein and livelihoods.

Despite these environmental distress signals associated with water scarcity, government policies on freshwater have generally bowed to the insatiability of consumerism. There has been poor understanding of the interdependence of the building blocks of human development, often described as the water energy food nexus.

Too many governments lack the coordination necessary to anticipate how policies targeting one element of this nexus will almost certainly have consequences for the other two. For example, almost half of India’s thermal power capacity is located in regions of water scarcity, suffering regular disruption to energy supplies.

Another example relates to new fossil fuel technologies such as gas fracking and oil sands. Government enthusiasm has tended to overlook the intrusion and demands on the water cycle. Fears of depletion and pollution of local water sources has played a part in the widespread public unease about these technologies.

Water is Life. Don’t UnderMine It – an animation of contrasting waterway journeys reveals how mining is damaging the water cycle
from The Gaia Foundation

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more Water Scarcity briefings (updated May 2021)
Water Cycle
Climate Change and Water Scarcity
Solutions to Water Scarcity
Sustainable Development Goal for Water
Water Wars
Source material and useful links

Recent news and opinion about Water Scarcity

Middle East’s groundwater: Will it soon run out?

16/8/2023: As rivers dry up and rainfall declines, water stored underground is more important than ever. Many Middle Eastern countries already have regulations about water use but there is a lack of enforcement to regulate water abstraction for agriculture.

Source: DW

Water – a weapon of war or a tool for peace?

11/7/2023: The recent Kakhovka dam disaster in Ukraine is a painful reminder of how destruction of water infrastructure can cause enormous suffering in times of war. Researchers who have studied Yemen, Libya, and Syria say that attacks on civilian and environmental infrastructure have become more common in the past decade.

Source: Inter Press Service

Water security lags behind in UN environmental protection

25/3/2023: The UN’s first water conference in nearly 50 years claims to have secured over $300 billion of promises of global action. But there is no legally binding international agreement to protect water resources and no UN special envoy.

Source: Devex

UN warns of’imminent global water crisis

22/3/2023: The UN has released the World Water Development Report 2023, painting a grim picture of rising global water scarcity. It finds that about 10% of the global population lives in countries where water stress is considered "high or critical."

Source: DW

Access to safe drinking water requires increased investment

24/10/2022: The State of the World’s Drinking Water report notes that over 2 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water in the past two decades. However, one-quarter of the world’s population has been left behind and governments must dramatically increase political commitment and quadruple investment in drinking water.

Source: World Health Organization

Countries must step up efforts to protect freshwater sources

25/8/2022: As events marking World Water Week continue in Stockholm, countries are urged to do more to adapt to the cascading impacts of the climate crisis on freshwater ecosystems, with increasingly frequent and intense dry periods interspersed with floods and extreme precipitation.

Source: UN Environment Programme

Ethiopia expands Renaissance Dam production

11/8/2022: Ethiopia has activated the second turbine of the Grand Renaissance Dam, even as Egypt protested that dispute resolutions relating to the dam remain pending. The dam on the Blue Nile should improve access to electricity in Ethiopia which is currently just under 45 percent.

Source: The East African

The Mekong delta’s transboundary water problems

30/4/2022: The fragmentation of the Mekong River due to the construction of large-scale hydropower dams illustrates the inability of downstream states to shape the Mekong Agreement of 1995 into regional aims, rather than centred around national interests. The Mekong River is the lifeblood of countries in the region .

Source: East Asia Forum

Freshwater planetary boundary oversteps the line

27/4/2022: Humanity’s modification of the water cycle has pushed the world further beyond a safe operating space for continued life on Earth, say scientists. Water is the sixth boundary to be transgressed, out of the nine identified by the Planetary Boundaries Framework, first published in 2009.

Source: Mongabay

Worrying insights from assessment of water security in Africa

6/4/2022: Only 29 African countries have made progress in water security over the past three to five years. Twenty-five have made none. The UN’s concept of water security encompasses various criteria and more effort is needed to establish global standards for data and assessment.

Source: The Conversation

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