Water - State of the Problem

Here's a great 4 minute overview from SABMiller on the Water, Energy, Food nexus (+climate)

 

At a macro level, Charting Our Water Future captures the state of the water problem at the system level:

"In the world of water resources, economic data is insufficient, management is often opaque, and stakeholders are insufficiently linked. As a result, many countries struggle to shape implementable, fact-based water policies, and water resources face inefficient allocation and poor investment patterns because investors lack a consistent basis for economically rational decision-making."

 

Carbon Disclosure Project, with the help of Deloitte, created their CDP Water Disclosure Global Report 2011, instrumental in understanding and wrapping metrics around the business risks involved with water security. 

 

A more traditional approach found throughout the literature identifies India and China's problems, typically with respect to projected increases in demand relative to supply: the gap.

 

By 2030, demand in India will grow to almost 1.5 trillion m3, driven by domestic demand for rice, wheat, and sugar for a growing population, a large proportion of which is moving toward a middle-class diet. Against this demand, India’s current water supply is approximately 740 billion m3.
…
China’s demand in 2030 is expected to reach 818 billion m3, of which just over 50 percent is from agriculture (of which almost half is for rice), 32 percent is industrial demand driven by thermal power generation, and the remaining is domestic. Current supply amounts to just over 618 billion m3

 

• 25% of rivers do not meet an ocean - Johan Rockstrom's TED talk ~15:20