New UN report looks underfoot, to solve global water crises

While groundwater accounts for 99 per cent of all running freshwater on Earth, it is often undervalued, mismanaged, and overexploited, according to a report published on March 21 by the UN scientific organization, UNESCO. 

“Groundwater is a critical natural resource, invisible but indispensable for life on our planet”, UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said in the Foreword of Making the invisible visible, the latest edition of the UN World Water Development Report  (WWDR). 

Noting that nearly 50 per cent of the world’s urban population depends on underground water sources, she pointed out that “more and more aquifers are being polluted, overexploited, and dried up by humans, sometimes with irreversible consequences.” 

Water needs protecting 

At the opening ceremony of the Ninth World Water Forum in Dakar, Senegal, the authors shone a spotlight on the vast potential of groundwater, the need to manage it sustainably and a call for States to address current and future water crises throughout the globe.  

In addition to providing water to drink and for other domestic uses, around 25 per cent is essential for irrigating crops. 

Moreover, water use is projected to grow by roughly one per cent annually over the next 30 years, and dependency on groundwater is expected to rise along with the impact of global warming. 

Strengthen regulations 

Because it is practically irreversible, groundwater pollution must be avoided – and its invisible nature makes prosecuting polluters quite challenging.  

Preventing contamination requires suitable land use and appropriate environmental regulations, especially across aquifer recharge areas, WWDR stresses, pushing governments, as resource custodians, to ensure that access to and profit from groundwater are distributed equitably. 

“Improved knowledge and capacity development is not enough. To protect aquifers, we also need innovation, in terms of technical interventions, institutional and legal reforms, improved financing, and behavioural changes,” argued the UNESCO chief. 

Groundwater is the focus of World Water Day, marked on Wednesday, and in cooperation with UN-Water, UNESCO is organizing a global groundwater summit in December.  

UN-Water’s flagship WWDR focuses on a different theme every year and is published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water. 

Its production is coordinated by the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme to provide insight into the main trends concerning the state, use and management of freshwater and sanitation.