UN Report: World enters era of water bankruptcy

• 29 Jan 2026

On January 20, 2026, the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) released the "Global Water Bankruptcy" report, marking a breaking point in the global debate on water availability. This is not just another warning about an imminent crisis: the world has already officially entered the era of water bankruptcy, a structural condition where water use has permanently exceeded renewal capacity, and much of the damage to natural water capital has become irreversible.

For a sector—on which agriculture, energy, industry, and human survival depend—this signifies a paradigm shift in the way we think about solutions and strategies.

Key data from the report

The following figures are not simple statistics, but an alarm signal that can no longer be ignored:

• 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water
• 3.5 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation services
• 4 billion people face severe water scarcity for at least one month every year
• In the last 50 years, humanity has lost approximately 410 million hectares of natural wetlands
• More than half of the world's large lakes have lost water since 1990
• About 70% of the world's major aquifers show long-term declines

The reported data do not represent cyclical variability or shocks, but testify to a structural and permanent erosion of global water availability. This situation has cascading effects. When basins dry up and aquifers are depleted, global food security is directly threatened: in fact, 70% of global freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture.

How to mitigate the crisis

An additional aspect that must not be underestimated in mitigation strategies is the degradation of water quality. Even where nominal water volumes remain stable, the fraction of effectively usable water is shrinking.

​Pollution from untreated wastewater, agricultural runoff, industrial contamination, and salinization of coastal aquifers all contribute to turning an increasing fraction of available water into a resource unusable for drinking, irrigation, or maintaining ecosystems. In many basins, quality has degraded to the point that even in years of relative "water abundance," safe water remains scarce.

​This creates an urgent imperative for advanced treatment technologies and wastewater reuse, for which innovation and investment are now crucial.

Technology alone, however, is not enough. The UNU-INWEH report emphasizes that managing water bankruptcy requires institutional transformation and a reconfiguration of water rights.

The goal for the future will, therefore, be to find suitable strategies to mitigate this crisis, fostering a rethinking of the global water system for more sustainable resource management, in line with the needs dictated by this new era. These adaptation conditions are becoming essential to ensure human well-being, economic stability, and long-term ecosystem protection.

These very themes will be at the center of the next edition of Accadueo, to be held from November 26 to 27, 2026, at the Nuova Fiera del Levante in Bari: water treatment and reuse, water resource sustainability, digitalization of the sector, leak reduction, and regulatory updates. The extensive conference program of the event, which will complement the exhibition area, will facilitate dialogue and debate on key industry issues—essential, as highlighted in the report, to better face the challenges awaiting the water sector.

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