• Report's lead author Kaveh Madani tells Anadolu: 'Water bankruptcy is not the end of the world. It reminds us of a failure' and responsibility

ANKARA

The world has entered an era of water bankruptcy rather than a temporary water crisis, as humanity's annual water use now exceeds the renewable water budget provided by nature through rain and snow each year, warned the UN.

Half of the world's major lakes have been losing water since the 1990s, while these lakes directly support a quarter of the global population.

Over the past 50 years, nearly 410 million hectares of natural wetlands, an area almost the size of the European Union, have been lost.

Globally, half of domestic water use comes from groundwater, while more than 40% of irrigation water is drawn from continuously depleting aquifers, with 70% of major aquifers showing long-term declines.

Approximately 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year, while about 75% of the world's population lives in countries facing 'water-insecure' or 'critically water-insecure' conditions.

Around 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water, and 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation services.

Between 2022 and 2023, 1.8 billion people lived under drought conditions, while the annual cost of lost wetland ecosystem services was calculated at $5.1 trillion, and the annual cost of drought itself reached $307 billion.

A state of failure

The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), in its latest flagship report, Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era, declares that the world has entered the era of global water bankruptcy.

Speaking to Anadolu, the report's lead author and director of UNU-INWEH, Kaveh Madani, explained the issue using a simple financial analogy: withdrawing money from a savings account.

“If we continue using more than what’s available or our natural income, then we have to go to our savings,” he said.

Madani described “water bankruptcy” as a powerful term, adding: “But it’s not a buzzword and we want people who will be using it to use it responsibly.”

According to Madani, just like financial bankruptcy, it reflects a state of failure, a situation where the available budget no longer matches the expenditure.

"In the same way that financial bankruptcy forces us to admit a harsh reality and accept that the current business model is no longer viable, water bankruptcy requires the same honest recognition. In many parts of the world, our existing development model and water governance systems have proven unsustainable and fundamentally dysfunctional."

He noted that the concept of “crisis” implies a temporary situation, but in many parts of the world, the water problem has now become the new normal.

He stated that the world is on the path to depleting both surface and groundwater resources.

Failing ecosystem components

Madani explained that by overusing water resources, humanity has taken the share belonging to the environment, the silent stakeholder.

"As a result of this behavior, we are now seeing failing ecosystem components—wetlands that cannot restore themselves, aquifers that cannot recharge in the short term, retreating glaciers, extinct species, and many other signs of damage," he explained.

Madani emphasized that water bankruptcy can affect all countries regardless of economic size. What matters is not a country's wealth, but the balance between its water expenditures and available water budget.

"Like financial bankruptcy, you can be poor or rich. What matters is how you manage your budget. You can be rich and become bankrupt, and you can be poor and not become bankrupt."

"That's why we see water bankruptcy problems appearing in different parts of the world," Madani said, noting that the report specifically identifies these regions.

An existential threat

"So some rich nations in Europe and North America are also dealing with the problem of water bankruptcy or the consequences of water bankruptcy. But what the report also tells us is that the consequences are not different," he said.

Madani stressed that bankruptcy is not the end of the world. "It reminds us of a failure, but it's not the end of the world. When you admit to bankruptcy, you accept that you have failed, but then you want to enable the future."

"Water is a natural asset that we have inherited from our ancestors, and we have to leave it for the next generations. It must be the responsibility of citizens and governments around the world to protect this valuable and essential natural asset. If we don't do so, we will be facing an existential threat," he warned.

*Writing by Selcuk Uysal