The world has entered an era of global water bankruptcy, as many societies have overspent their yearly renewable water ‘income’ from rivers, soils and snowpack, and have depleted long-term ‘savings’ in aquifers, glaciers, wetlands and other natural reservoirs. A flagship report by United Nations University’s (UNU’s) Institute for Water, Environment and Health (INWEH), reveals that terms such as ‘water stressed’ and ‘water crisis’ fail to reflect the current 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.
