A new report from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) is warning of the risk of global water bankruptcy with many regions of the world living beyond their hydrological means.

Published on the occasion of UNU-INWEH’s 30th anniversary, and ahead of the 2026 UN Water Conference, the flagship report, Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era, argues that the world has entered a new stage: more and more river basins and aquifers are losing the ability to return to their historical “normal.” It finds that many river basins and aquifers have entered a post-crisis condition, in which historical baselines are no longer attainable without transformative change.

The report is calling for a fundamental reset of the global water agenda as irreversible damage pushes many basins beyond recovery. It argues that the familiar terms “water stressed” and “water crisis” fail to reflect today’s reality in many places: a post-crisis condition marked by irreversible losses of natural water capital and an inability to bounce back to historic baselines.

Against a backdrop of chronic groundwater depletion, water overallocation, land and soil degradation, deforestation and pollution — all compounded by climate change — the report concludes that many regions are living beyond their hydrological means and that numerous critical water systems are already effectively ‘bankrupt’.

Droughts, shortages, and pollution episodes that once looked like temporary shocks are becoming chronic in many places, signalling a post-crisis condition the report calls water bankruptcy.

The UNU report is based on a peer-reviewed paper in the journal of Water Resources Management that formally defines water bankruptcy as:

• persistent over-withdrawal from surface and groundwater relative to renewable inflows and safe levels of depletion; and
• the resulting irreversible or prohibitively costly loss of water-related natural capital.

In contrast:

• “Water stress” reflects high pressure that remains reversible
• “Water crisis” describes acute shocks that can be overcome

The report is calling for science-based adaptation to a new hydrological reality and urging governments and the United Nations system to use the 2026 and 2028 UN Water Conferences, the end of the Water Action Decade in 2028, and the 2030 SDG deadline to reset the global water agenda

The report makes the case for a fundamental shift in the global water agenda—from repeatedly reacting to emergencies to “bankruptcy management.” That means confronting overshoot with transparent water accounting, enforceable limits, and protection of the water-related natural capital that produces and stores water—aquifers, wetlands, soils, rivers, and glaciers—while ensuring transitions are explicitly equity-oriented and protect vulnerable communities and livelihoods.

Crucially, the report frames water not only as a growing source of risk, but also as a strategic opportunity in a fragmented world.

It argues that serious investment in water can unlock progress across climate, biodiversity, land, food, and health, and serve as a practical platform for cooperation within and between societies. Acting early, before stress hardens into irreversible loss, can reduce shared risks, strengthen resilience, and rebuild trust through tangible results, the report says.

Lead author Kaveh Madani, Director of UNU-INWEH, known as 'The UN’s Think Tank on Water' says:

“This report tells an uncomfortable truth: many regions are living beyond their hydrological means, and many critical water systems are already bankrupt.

“While not every basin and country is water-bankrupt, enough critical systems around the world have crossed these thresholds. These systems are interconnected through trade, migration, climate feedbacks, and geopolitical dependencies, so the global risk landscape is now fundamentally altered.”

Hotspots

In the Middle East and North Africa region, high water stress, climate vulnerability, low agricultural productivity, energy-intensive desalination, and sand and dust storms intersect with complex political economies;

In parts of South Asia, groundwater-dependent agriculture and urbanization have produced chronic declines in water tables and local subsidence; and

In the American Southwest, the Colorado River and its reservoirs have become symbols of over-promised water.

A world in the red

Drawing on global datasets and recent scientific evidence, the report presents a stark statistical overview of trends, the overwhelming majority caused by humans, including:

• 50%: Large lakes worldwide that have lost water since the early 1990s (with 25% of humanity directly dependent on those lakes)
• 50%: Global domestic water now derived from groundwater
• 40%+: Irrigation water drawn from aquifers being steadily drained
• 70%: Major aquifers showing long-term decline
• 410 million hectares: Area of natural wetlands – almost equal in size to the entire European Union – erased in the past five decades. The loss of ecosystem services from these wetlands is valued at over US$5.1 trillion, similar to the combined GDP of around 135 of the world’s poorest countries.
• 30%+: Global glacier mass lost in multiple locations since 1970, with entire low- and mid-latitude mountain ranges expected to lose functional glaciers altogether within decades. The cryosphere is melting, eroding a critical long-term water buffer.
• Dozens: Major rivers that now fail to reach the sea for parts of the year
• 50+ years: How long many river basins and aquifers have been overdrawing their accounts
• 100 million hectares: Cropland damaged by salinization alone

The report flags up the human and economic consequences:

• 75%: Humanity in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure
• 2 billion: People living on sinking ground.
• 25 cm: Annual drop being experienced by some cities
• 4 billion: People facing severe water scarcity at least one month every year
• 170 million hectares: Irrigated cropland under high or very high water stress – equivalent to the areas of France, Spain, Germany, and Italy combined
• US$5.1 trillion: Annual value of lost wetland ecosystem services
• 3 billion: People living in areas where total water storage is declining or unstable, with 50%+ of global food produced in those same stressed regions.
• 1.8 billion: People living under drought conditions in 2022–2023
• US$307 billion: Current annual global cost of drought
• 2.2 billion: People who lack safely managed drinking water, while 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation

Kaveh Madani continues:

“Millions of farmers are trying to grow more food from shrinking, polluted, or disappearing water sources. Without rapid transitions toward water-smart agriculture, water bankruptcy will spread rapidly….

“Water bankruptcy is also global because its consequences travel,. Agriculture accounts for the vast majority of freshwater use, and food systems are tightly interconnected through trade and prices. When water scarcity undermines farming in one region, the effects ripple through global markets, political stability, and food security elsewhere. This makes water bankruptcy not a series of isolated local crises, but a shared global risk that demands a new type of response: Bankruptcy management, not crisis management.”

Click here to download the full report