In 2022, global water stress levels reached 18 percent. However, there were many regional
variations. Northern Africa and Southern Asia displayed critical levels of water stress at
121 percent and 76.7 percent respectively, and high levels of water stress were observed in Central
Asia (70.2 percent) and Western Asia (65.1 percent) placing enormous pressure on people,
economies and ecosystems. Conversely, Europe and North America (12.3 percent), Latin America
and the Caribbean (5.7 percent), Oceania (3.2 percent), South-eastern Asia (20.6 percent) and
sub-Saharan Africa (6.3 percent) presented low levels of water stress.
An upward trend in water stress levels was observed since 2015 in some regions, with Northern
Africa, Western Asia and Oceania experiencing the most significant increases, rising by
15.6 percent, 12.9 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively, between 2015 and 2022. In contrast,
Central Asia recorded a notable decrease, with water stress falling from 76.8 percent in 2015 to
70.2 percent in 2022, representing a reduction of 8.6 percent. Eastern Asia, Southern Asia
and Europe and Northern America also eased pressure on water resources, with reductions of
3.3 percent, 1.7 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively (Figure 19).
Globally, 18 countries experienced critical levels of water stress in 2022, where total water
withdrawals across all sectors exceeded 100 percent of their
renewable freshwater resources. An
additional eight countries faced high water stress, with withdrawals ranging between 75 and
100 percent. Among the most severely affected were Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United
Arab Emirates, where
water stress levels ranged from 431 percent to an alarming 3 851 percent
in the same year (see Figure 20 and Figure 21).
More than 733 million people live in countries with high and critical water stress, accounting for almost 10 percent of the global population.
As of 2022, agriculture remained the largest contributor to global water stress, accounting for
72 percent of total withdrawals, followed by the industrial sector at 15 percent and the service
sector at 13 percent. In 2022, Northern Africa was the region with the largest contributions
from the agriculture sector to total water scarcity (99.6 percent), followed by Southern Asia
(70 percent), Central Asia (57.6 percent) and Western Asia (52.2 percent). Since 2015, the
agricultural sector slightly reduced its pressure on water resources by 0.58 percent. Noticeable
improvements were observed in Central Asia (−13.55 percent), Eastern Asia (−6.27 percent)
and Southern Asia (−1.73 percent) (Figure 22). However, water stress levels surged in Oceania
and Northern Africa, rising by 31.4 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively, over the same period.
Comments
Post a Comment