Public sentiment exhibits a combination of urgent concern and frustration regarding the global water crisis, highlighting the need for immediate action, educational initiatives, and systemic change. While there is a significant emphasis on personal responsibility and value for water, many commenters express disappointment in governmental responses and corporate practices that exacerbate the crisis. Overall, there's a call for cooperation and innovative solutions prioritized over militarization and corporate negligence.

Iranian Government

Corporations

Environmental Activists

How in the fuck are the Great Lakes at risk for drought? Please explain to me how a region containing 25% of the earth’s freshwater will be in drought anytime soon

[deleted]

I find it very hard to believe that almost all of South India has the highest risk of drought in the entire world

Ayyrimaspi

California is at a low drought risk while Northern Serbia is at a High Risk? Doesn't seem accurate. Those areas have vastly different climates and I'll tell you confidently that California gets much less average precipitation, even on a 'wet' year.

unrulyhoneycomb

Northern indonesia is dominated by sparsely populated rainforest, in what way does they have higher risk of drought than literal deserts?

sora_mui

Hard to imagine that rainy Ireland and the south coast of France (which [burned its way through the summer of 2022](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/10/more-than-6000-evacuated-in-south-west-france-as-wildfires-destroy-forests) are in the same class for drought risk. What am I missing? Maybe the cut points between classes shouldn’t be equally spaced as they are? There’s a huge difference between 0.9 and 0.999, and not much between 0.1 and 0.199.

brokenfingers11

AverageAlaskanMan

Can't believe Canada is light blue when most of the fresh water on the planet is located in Quebec and Ontario.

Countries like Canada, China, Russia, and US are way too big to be given a single color.

Might be a stupid question but by 2050 won't water desalination tech make this a non issue for Rich, developed countries? (Aka the entire Western world for example)? Hell, isn't that happening today? (For example in Israel).

Belgium is very concerning. It already is. A longer period of drought is a disaster for our agricultural sector. We really need investments in collection basins, to collect water during wetter periods. There already are such basins, but really really not enough.

Edit: typo

divaro98

desalinization is really the only answer.

heyknauw

Sudan has the same water security as Canada?

Press X to Doubt

Jq4000

It's hard to not be pessimistic re the Middle East looking at stuff like this.  Growing population + increasing water scarcity/temperatures + likely declining oil/gas revenues.  The Gulf states might be wealthy enough to weather the storm, but there is going to be a lot of misery in that region for the foreseeable future.

America should be split between East and West coast. West coast, yeah they have a water issue due to farming and building entire cities in the desert (Phoenix anymore?) East coast… not so much. We have 1000s of lakes and strong water tables (seriously, we cant have basements in the south for this reason)

Specialist_Shallot82

Anyone can explain how Russia(lake Baikal and great Siberian rivers) and Canada(Great Lakes) gonna be worse than some parts of Africa?
Is map about actual “people literally have nothing to drink” or criteria are more complex?

Lumpy-Middle-7311

Australian Politicians will keep fiddling while Australia burns

It says by the year 2100, not 2050 like the title?

Verfrommeld

matus_ko

NaiE007

New Zealand just quietly sitting in the corner with a bunch of thirsty Aussies on the horizon.

BottleSuccessfully

Visefis

How is Central Africa deep blue? In fact Africa seems to be the most water secure continent of all if you exclude the Arabic/Northern countries

DB9V122000_

Not true. Desalination of seawater has become very cheap, there will be no water shortage in the future. But humanity will dwindle, due to plumeting birth rates.

Abgruendig

Not enough granularity to be useful. Even in a country with a land mass as small as the UK this does not hold true. South East England may have this level of water stress but Scotland and Wales certainly won’t!

TheBuachailleBoy

I guess this is about stress from drinking water only? Like, "Oh, yeah, people in The Netherlands aren't going to be worried about drinking water, because they'll all be drowned by the ocean."

Heartlight

Great idea to put "extremely high" and "low" in very close colours!

szpaceSZ

Seys-Rex

Leuris_Khan

So a majority of the population will be water stressed by 2050? Damn.

Key-Vegetable-1316

Australia is surrounded by water on all sides. How will they have water shortage? Are they stupid? 

/s

Miserable_Goat_6698

Am in yellow and water is already a problem.

Armisael2245

Solarka45

Looks like Bolivia is gonna have the last laugh over Chile after all

toomuchspoiledmilk

Paraguay is really interesting. I've heard people say that Paraguay will actually [fare pretty well](https://www.reddit.com/r/climatechange/comments/1cisk82/comment/l2cv6u4/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button) with climate change &amp; not be affected as much, and now it says here that Paraguay will have very low water stress.

What's up with Paraguay?

Nabaseito

Israel has a water surplus. They spend billions on desalination plants. This map is poop.

MediocreFun1973

Did not know I live in Spain and raised the stress level

Insert_your_emoji

Most of Western Europe getting fucked bad...

Jujubatron

Northern Ireland being light blue is another one that shows the map maker has made no effort.

Reactance15

Wales: We sell water to England so we will stay dark blue!

januscanary

Yarra yedik beyler. Biz gotu kurtarsak guneydeki yanyamlar belamizi sikecek.

Consistent-Shock9421

springoniondip

Weary-Connection3393

madrid987

Saudi Arabia already gets 60% of their water from desalination plants. What water stress are they talking about?

mehdital

As a Scotsman i absolutely hate being lumped with the rest of the UK here. Give me the darkest of blueees now

Glorfindel42

Yep don't emigrate to Australia if you like to drink water.

dzernumbrd

Where will the water go? Evaporate into space?

Deep-Room6932

Bullshit. Lithuania lies on top of the fresh water basin, what water stress are we talking about?!

kudzman

No wonder Middle East and North Africa is a fucked up place…

MonsieurFubar

Why has Ireland and Northern Ireland got different colours.

jools4you

Some dark blue areas in Africa and some regions have water scarcity too. But not because of climate, it is because of economy and infrastructure problems.

mrcity1558

This is a country map fully colored, it makes no sense, China, the US, Canada and Russia are huge to all the one color. Even if you zoom in on Ireland which is dark blue but the North of Ireland is lighter blue because of the  UK's color.

Where Water Stress Will Be Highest by ~~2000 2020 2030~~ 2050

JohnnySack999

too bad they don't list any country subdivisions because Alaska would be dark blue for sure.

newtrawn

The solution for this is so easy, we just need to get rid of the UN and turn off the TV.

GamezJP

Nuclear power and water distillation plants

WeeZoo87

South Africa has some reservoirs right now that are at 1% capacity. I didn't type that wrong.

OttoSilver

Isatis_tinctoria

Invest in water stocks and ETFs now and become a millionaire

Far-Reaction-1980

Does it takes into account gulf current collapse?

docet_

How is most of the Sahel blue. I thought drough is a massive issue there 

YoIronFistBro

BidnyZolnierzLonda

Canda, Russian, and the Baltic states need to stop hogging all the water and share

JakeJascob

How are Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia low to a medium? They are literal islands.

They will literally have so much land under the sea.

Corumdum_Mania

This reminds me of how some said that the most climate change proof regions are around the Great Lakes.

theaviationhistorian

So, just [this map](https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/styles/1575_wide/s3/2023-08/23-08-02-aqueduct-4.0-launch-global-countries-2050_Insights-new-title.png?VersionId=Ki1M23ze5Fv3yIPU9S4zN72_SLf4ovGR&amp;itok=VAvr6MMt) but recoloured? Source: [https://www.wri.org/insights/highest-water-stressed-countries](https://www.wri.org/insights/highest-water-stressed-countries)

ma_tendresse

OK, um ... lumping the entire US together like this is ... not helpful.

Popular-Lock4401

Yes, do all this. But also, the amount of water that homes use is a fraction of what humans in general use. We can only reduce our home's water usage to a certain point. For the long term we need more sources of water.

1200multistrada

Cutting to the chase, do you want to win the battle or the war? Cutting your individual water consumption down is good, the biggest bang for the buck is lawn irrigation. However, even if we cut ALL residential/municipal water usage, at best we are talking about only 20% of the water use. Agriculture and farming consumes 70% of all fresh water consumption. If you want the best return, start with the highest consumer.

Silly_Primary_3393

Honestly, residential use is a drop in the bucket. Conserving at home will give us the warm fuzzies, but isn’t going to move the needle

Mathchick99

Man this really sounds like some AI generated corporate water company BS. Household water use is such a small fraction of where our freshwater goes. Agriculture and livestock are huge, and then you have industry. Golf courses don't help. Your decision to take shorter showers makes absolutely zero difference in the long run.

mtbguy1981

Great tips! Start by fixing leaks, switching to efficient fixtures, watering plants smartly, and cutting food waste small changes at home add up to big water savings worldwide.

LeatherBeautiful5963

Stop wasting water on ethanol.  Find ways for farmers to reduce water.  One Water.  There needs to be a lot more direct potable reuse.

The_Roaring_Fork

NefariousnessSlow298

sfdsquid

We just need to keep removing reservoirs and say it’s climate change.  Who needs to improve water infrastructure with a growing population?

Sea-Louse

Lets not forget another area which uses 30% of the interior consumption. 

Flush toilets. 

We used to handle that as a solid waste and for the most part it worked, well. Now we all pay higher and higher rates to clean 10x the water trying to dispose of it and to standards which some metros are now concluding will be easy to recycle - right back into the fresh water system. 

Yes, the are going to go Space Shuttle. Its not up there with a long hose attached, but they could send it back - burn it up on reentry. There are even propane toilets now which burn that waste. 

Grey water recycles pretty easy, we need to rethink things about the solid waste.

SetNo8186

Stop growing water hungry plants in the desert. Like alfalfa in California.

Or hay. Stuff that can be grown anywhere.

knowitallz

First, there's no "global" water crisis, but a number of local ones. Fixing one local one won't fix one elsewhere. 

Second, the only thing you said that's globally relevant is "virtual water" but if you eat less beef than someone elsewhere might eat more. Not solved.

Third, mostly nothing will work in terms of personal behavior, unless there's a collective change in behavior. 

(I've been working on this topic for 20+ years...)

davidzet

Crisis? It rains like every couple days? PNW

zamaike

Water is not used up. Unless it is  dumped in the ocean it goes back into the water table...

Fair_Art_8459

We have the same amount of water on earth as we have always had. Its immutable

seanocaster40k

Reduce the number of unnecessary humans carrying water in their bodies. Stop bottling water.

Available_Face7618

Stop using AI for every little question or email. Googles water consumption has risen 48% in the last five years because they have been using to it to cool AI processing systems.

  
It's not linear, AI is integrated into every part of the western life but simple questions that can be Ecosia searched, found in a book or spend the extra 30 seconds to recall it definitely helps.

juliemay_lingerie

There’s a global water crisis ? I hadn’t heard anything about that … propaganda?

UnitRelative7321

You saving water at home while cities in deserts drain aquifers and megacorps fill bottles from city supplies to sell back to you is about as helpful as paper straws while politicians fly private to climate summits.

Owenleejoeking

Reduced water supply is a direct impact of global warming.  The amount of water on planet earth has not been reduced, only the atmosphere being warmer holds more water than it did previously.  That additional water has been evaporated from surface water supplies.  With continued warming of the atmosphere the amount of water sitting in rivers, lakes and ponds will continue to be reduced.

TrueSpirt

Thanks for your suggestions, very helpful.

SnooCakes5350

Going vegan saves way more water than everything else you could do combined.

Spare_Schedule_839

Stop the biggest water thieves from thieving

The_Stereoskopian

The issue is multibillion dollar companies wasting millions of gallons every day. There’s nothing the average person can do to offset that.

parrotia78

If you really wanna get rid of half of the problem, go Vegan

No_Adhesiveness9727

Learn from Australia

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duvkkGCqvUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duvkkGCqvUE)

MidorriMeltdown

The global water crisis is intensifying due to climate change, affecting billions and leading to food insecurity and social upheaval.

Global Water Crisis and Drought Impact

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

Parties Involved

What the people want