About half of world's urban population to face water scarcity by 2050

26% of the world's population doesn't have access to safe drinking water

One third to nearly half of the global urban population will face water scarcity in 2050, and India will be among the worst affected countries, United Nations World Water Development Report 2023 has cautioned.

The report was launched on Tuesday, just a day before the start of the first major United Nations conference on water in over 45 years.

According to figures from 2020, 26 per cent of the world’s population -- two billion people -- did not have access to safely managed drinking water services, and an estimated 46 per cent -- 3.6 billion -- lacked access to safely managed sanitation. 

The report, while referring to the United Nation’s drive to ensure that everyone has access to clean water and sanitation by 2030, said that the world will not meet the goal if countries continue to tread the current course.

The global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to increase from 933 million (one third of global urban population) in 2016 to 1.7–2.4 billion people (nearly half of global urban population) in 2050, with India projected to be most severely affected in terms of growth in water-scarce urban population (increase of 153-422 million people)

“Around 80 per cent of people living under water stress lived in Asia; in particular, northeast China, as well as India and Pakistan,” the report said. 

“Cooperation is critical to achieving all water-related goals and targets,” the agency said in the report.

It also suggested that investments for water supply and sanitation facilities at the household level require specific financial products, such as micro-credits for low-income consumers and households. 

The report also found that around 44 per cent of all domestic wastewater worldwide was not safely treated prior to its release into the environment in 2020. This number was extrapolated from data from 128 countries representing 80 per cent of the global population. 

While approximately 60 percent of the world’s reported water bodies were categorized as having “good” ambient water quality, the poorest 20 countries were grossly underrepresented in this global estimate.

Globally, water use efficiency rose by 9 per cent from 2015 to 2018 (from 17.3 to 18.9 US$/m³). Progress has been greatest in the industrial sector (15% increase), followed by the water supply and sanitation services and agricultural sectors, according to the UN report. 

Pointing towards the lack of data, the UN report said that only 42 countries -- representative of 18 percent of the global population -- reported both generation and treatment of total wastewater flows.

And only preliminary and rough indications of progress for water stress, water use efficiency, trans-boundary cooperation and Integrated Water Resources Management have been reported, leaving five of the eleven target indicators without quantified information on progress. 

Change in the level of water stress (2008–2018)

World: 0.1%

• Eastern and South-Eastern Asia: 7.1%
• Latin America and the Caribbean: 15.4%
• Northern Africa and Western Asia: 4.3%
• Europe and Northern America: -6.4%
• Central and Southern Asia: -5.3%

For water use efficiency, the level of water stress should decrease: show a negative percentage change over time.

Source: FAO/UN-Water