Water Crisis Slows Global Economic Growth
By 2050, humanity will face a drastic shortage of drinking water
As early as next year, about 50% of the world’s inhabitants will suffer from a lack of clean water, and more than a million people will die from diseases caused by contaminated water and health problems.
The world water crisis is becoming increasingly acute and will seriously damage food production by the middle of the 21st century. Such conclusions were reached by analysts of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water (GCEW), according to which, without taking a number of urgent measures to protect still available water resources and stop the destruction of ecological systems, on which the reproduction of freshwater resources takes place, humanity risks extinction.
GCEW was established by the Netherlands in 2022 to analyze the research results of scientists and economists from around the world and develop an integrated view of the state of global hydrological systems. The GCEW report is currently the most comprehensive study to date, which for the first time fully analyzes all aspects of the water crisis.
Half of humanity suffers from a lack of clean drinking water, and that number will continue to grow rapidly. The disappearance of freshwater sources will damage the quality of life of entire populations, as well as exacerbate the economic crisis: the lack of clean freshwater will slow global economic growth by an average of 8% per year.
In a few years, the water crisis will dramatically affect densely populated areas of northwest India, northeast China, as well as eastern and southern Europe, including Italy. It is estimated that Italian water networks continue to record significant losses: according to the Italian statistical agency ISTAT’s 2022 data, 42.4% of drinking water is wasted. This volume of water could meet the water needs of 43.4 million people throughout the year, equivalent to 75% of Italy’s population. This figure, worse than the 42.2% recorded in 2020, highlights the persistent inefficiency of the country’s water infrastructure.
UN experts largely agree with their GECW colleagues, according to whom up to 2.4 billion people, or 30% of the world’s population, already live in regions with chronic or temporary water shortages. This number is expected to grow to about 6 billion people by 2050. For this reason, the global water crisis requires innovative solutions in various sectors: from smart and cost-effective irrigation systems to preventive flood protection, from efficient resource treatment to wastewater recycling.
