Jan 22, 2026
3 min read
We are living beyond our water resources and many regions have reached a point of no return.A new report strengthens the discourse on this global emergency and its economic and social impact
The world's water, at the limit: what is the water drowning that the UN warning implies?
We are living beyond bodies of water.And many regions have reached the point of no return.A new report intensifies the debate about this global emergency.including economic and social impacts
The planet has reached a limit and in many places there is no turning back: a United Nations report has reached an era of global water bankruptcy.So far, there have been warnings about water-scarce areas and the emphasis is on the water crisis.But data from a study published today argues that this is an underestimate.Due to the continuous overexploitation of the Earth's water more and more ecosystems are threatened with irreversible losses and will not be able to recover their historical levels.
The use of the term 'bankruptcy' is no accident.The analysis is carried out in financial terms because the planet's reserves are not in balance: many regions have not only overstretched their annual 'income' from renewable water coming from rivers, soil and ice sheets.They have also depleted long-term 'storage' in aquifers, glaciers, wetlands and other natural reserves.Losing it also costs money and has a full effect on the economy7.307 billion is the current annual cost of drought worldwide.
The impact is not only economic.Water systems are interconnected through trade, migration and geopolitics, and the consequences of their reduction or loss affect our daily lives and social mechanisms.It should be noted that most of the current water conditions are man-made and that we are the direct target of its consequences.There are 4 billion people in the world who face water shortages for at least one month a year.The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INVEH) is now calling for an urgent update of the "global water agenda".
No water balance
Long-term depletion of groundwater, over-allocation of water, land and soil degradation, deforestation and environmental pollution all contribute to global warming.The surrounding casuistry is not something that we did not know, but the glass has run out "historically", explains to El Confidencial Kaveh Madani, director of UNU-INWEH and lead author of the peer-reviewed article Kaveh Madani, director of UNU-INWEH and lead author of the article Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond-Crisis on Our Posts, published in the Journal of Water Resources Management.
Leticia Baena, researcher at the Department of Water and Global Change of the Spanish Institute of Geology and Mining (IGME-CSIC), told the Science Media Center (SMC): "The global nature of the term 'bankruptcy' must be handled with caution: not all systems are the same."According to Ana Allende, research professor at CSIC and expert on food security and water quality, the parallels with bankruptcy help us understand that “it is a temporary or irreversible problem, but [the result of] decades of living off ‘water revenues,’ consuming natural resources such as rivers, wetlands, reservoirs, land, or glaciers that no longer allow us to recover to the conditions of the past.”
In many of these cases, these are areas that have directly reached a point of no return.Compressed aquifers don't rebound, submerged floodgates don't rise, and lost wetlands don't re-emerge, Bana explains.Not all places are in water bankruptcy, but enough are that the risk is global.
This point from now on means that we also have to change how we deal with this situation, because now we are managing "not only temporary 'crises', but a chronic condition after the crisis," says Madani.Such a change does not only affect the environment;"It can change food security, health, economy and stability," emphasizes the director to El Confidencial.
Many regions are living beyond their hydrological potential and many water systems are bankrupt
The UN agency also highlights some "hot" areas that require special attention.For example, the Middle East and North Africa region, where the water situation (climate vulnerability, sand and dust storms, etc.) is combined with a complex political economy.Also in parts of South Asia, where groundwater-dependent agriculture and urbanization have led to chronic declines in groundwater levels and local subsidence.The report indicates that 2 billion people worldwide live in a state of decline.
Spain at the center of the water shortage
Europe has traditionally been perceived as a less vulnerable region, but it has not been left behind."It is not a classic hot spot, but it suffers from a silent crisis: the aging of excessive aquifers in the Mediterranean, the intrusion of saline into the coasts, nitrate pollution, dependence on groundwater through droughts and subsidence in urban and rural areas," explains Baena to SMC.
In the case of Spain, Regions in particular, such as the Mediterranean basin and the south of the country, are facing tighter water budgets and frequent multi-year droughts. Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Study says flexibility and vulnerability; According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Mediterranean region is particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change on water.
But that's not all.According to data from the European Drought Observatory of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission, the Iberian Peninsula is one of the European regions most affected by drought.
The overuse and depletion of aquifers in southeastern Spain is a serious problem, admits SMC José Luis García, scientific researcher of IGME's water and global change department."The report focuses on quantitative aspects, but if water quality deterioration is included, the situation becomes more serious. The [Water Framework Directive] expires in 2027, after two extensions, and the concern is maximum because it is not clear how to deal with this problem," he says.Globally, 70% of aquifers show long-term decline.
Life as we know it
If some disciplines reach no recovery, others almost collapse, if we do not act, could this exchange of life know?They are already happening and things are getting worse."When water damages occur, life sometimes goes forward with permanent limitations: prices, low credit and improvement more difficult every year," said Madani El Confidential.
Agriculture is a clear example of the direct impact that we can imagine in our daily lives.As the expert explained, if a basin relies too much on groundwater depletion, agriculture does not function 'normally', and social and economic impacts increase.He emphasized that "the land can stop working, jobs change and food prices become more volatile. In some parts of the world, this can lead to hunger, forced migration, stress and even It can also translate into conflict. "100 million hectares of crops in the world have been destroyed by salinity alone.
Also, our current way of life is not only emotional.We are returning to the environmental impact in the area of fear of no return: land subsidence, sinkholes, melting glaciers, cleaning lakes and the extinction of species that cannot be denied in large numbers.Future generations may see a very different planet than the one we live on.
adapt to the new reality
The question that must be asked after bad news and warnings is: What do we do now?Jordi Catalán, a research professor at China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation's Center for Environmental Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), said it was important to understand the current situation. "It doesn't necessarily mean resignation, but it should inspire people to make more decisions about climate issues and runaway development of resource use."
The UN is calling on world leaders to promote "just and scientific adaptation to the new reality".When asked what companies and decision-makers should do, Madani advised: "Focus on the big levers: reduction of emissions, reuse in places that really replace the extraction of fresh water, protection of groundwater and the environment, and a plan that is reliable and focused on agriculture, which includes most of the withdrawals."
Whether or not we live in an area marked by water stress, its consequences fascinate and influence us, reaching us through food prices, electricity or financial stability.Having water today does not mean we cannot live “poor” in the future.
From our role we can also contribute."Support policies that protect water as a public good: transparent water accounting, limits on excessive use, pollution prevention and fair drought regulations; and reduce water and food waste," urges Madani.Because, as the researcher reminds, water is an issue that transcends political boundaries: "It belongs to the north and the south, the left and the right."
The planet has reached its limits and in many places there is no turning back: a UN report has entered an era of global water bankruptcy.Until now, warnings were given about the areas under water stress and attention was drawn to the water crisis.But research data published today claim that this is a decline.The continuous increase of water on Earth has shown more and more ecosystems with irreversible damage and it will not be able to recover its historical levels.
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