World Water Day

Water stress , essentially measured as water use as a function of available supply, affects many parts of the world. Over two billion people live in countries experiencing water stress. Physical water stress is often a seasonal rather than an annual phenomenon, as exemplified by the seasonal variability in water availability . An estimated four billion people live in areas that suffer from severe physical water scarcity for at least one month per year. About 1.6 billion people face ‘economic’ water scarcity , which means that while water may be physically available, they lack the necessary infrastructure to access that water ( Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture ).  Several of the world’s main aquifers are under increasing stress and 30% of the largestgroundwater systems are being depleted .  Water withdrawals for irrigation are The primary driver of groundwater depletion worldwide.

  Globally, built reservoir capacity per person is decreasing, as reservoir expansion has not been able to keep pace with population growth, but also because storage capacity of existing reservoirs is decreasing, chiefly due to sedimentation . The  Average annual storage volume losses equal about 1% of total built reservoir capacity, and the estimated costs for restoring these losses are approximately US$13 billion per year. An assessment of the value of storage capacity for Enhancing water security in the world’s 400 largest river basins identified water shortage risks in many parts of Africa, as well as in Australia, northern China, India, Spain and the western USA. There are widespread declines in total water storage and associated freshwater availability that are primarily attributed to the intensive overextraction of groundwater and an increasing Temperature-induced surface water loss .

Global freshwater use has increased by a factor of six over the past 100 years and continues to grow at a rate of roughly 1% per year since the 1980s. Much of this growth can be attributed to a combination of population growth, economic development and shifting  consumption patterns . Agriculture currently accounts for 69% of global water withdrawals , which are mainly used for  irrigation but also include water used for livestock and aquaculture. This ratio can reach up to 95% in some developing countries (FAO, 2011a)  Industry (including energy and power generation) accounts for 19%, while municipalities are responsible for the remaining 12%. Globally, agriculture accounts for only about 4% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with an average contribution per country of 10.39%, the trend being a decreasing share of GDP. Such figures suggest that the value added of water use in agriculture is very low. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ...

  Water quality has deteriorated as a result of pollution in nearly all major rivers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Nutrient loading , which is often associated with pathogen loading , are among The most prevalent sources of pollution . Significant data gaps for wastewater remain . For example, reporting on the  SDG Indicator 6.3.1 , the proportion of wastewater safely treated , shows that 59% of Domestic wastewater flow is collected and safely treated, but this is based on data from only 79 countries, mostly high- and middle-income, and the data on Industrial wastewater are insufficient. It has been estimated that only 8% of industrial and municipal wastewater in low-income countries undergoes treatment of any kind.