- Global Water 2026
- Executive summary
Executive summary
The edition on a few pages: the abstract, the key messages, the headline finding and what each steward reads in it.
S.1Abstract
The world enters 2027 with a water system under strain from both ends. In 2022, 2.2 billion people still lacked safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lacked safely managed sanitation1; roughly half of the world’s people experience severe water scarcity for at least part of the year2. 2023 was the driest year for the world’s rivers in 33 years, and glaciers lost more than 600 gigatonnes of water, the largest annual loss in five decades5. Floods, storms and wildfires caused US$166 billion of 2025’s disaster losses7, while freshwater wildlife populations have fallen by 85% on average since 197017. Agriculture takes about 70% of withdrawals2, so water stress travels directly into food prices, hydropower, health and ecosystems. This Baseline Edition fixes the 2026 reference state of the global water system, maps its couplings to energy, food, health and nature, and sets the questions the 2027 edition will answer from basin and national evidence. It ranks no country or basin.
S.2Key messages
Six readings that frame the water baseline, and the eight questions this edition answers, each with its status and source.
2.2 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion safely managed sanitation in 2022.1
Who lacks safe water?Reported
Roughly half of the world’s people face severe scarcity for part of each year.222
How widespread is scarcity?Reported
2023 was the driest year for rivers in 33 years; glaciers lost more than 600 Gt.5
Is the water cycle changing?Reported
It supplies about half of domestic water, and declines have accelerated in many aquifers.420
What about groundwater?Reported
Agriculture uses about 70% of withdrawals; drought cuts yields and raises prices.215
How does water drive food risk?Reported
Hydropower and thermal cooling depend on flows; drought cuts both.14
How does water drive energy risk?Inferred
Freshwater wildlife fell by 85% on average since 1970; wetlands shrank by 22%.1718
How healthy is freshwater nature?Reported
A multi-basin drought cutting hydropower and irrigated yields at once. SCN-GS01-MBD-01
What will 2027 test first?Expert input
S.3Headline finding
ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-001
In 2022, 2.2 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lacked safely managed sanitation, and 2 billion lacked basic hygiene facilities at home.
| Item | Bar, scaled to the largest value | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Safely managed drinking water | 2.2 | |
| Safely managed sanitation | 3.5 |
Source: WHO/UNICEF JMP 20231.
Service gaps concentrate in low-income, rural and fragile settings, where they compound health, education and gender inequalities and leave households most exposed when drought or flood strikes. Closing them is also climate adaptation110.
S.4At a glance
S.5What each steward reads in it
GCRI · KEY T
Technical Truth
The evidence supports reading water as the coupling layer of the WEFH+B system.
GRF · KEY M
Public Meaning
For most people water risk arrives as a dry tap, a flooded street or a higher food price.
GRA · KEY F
Capital Meaning
Readiness implications only. Flood losses are large and often uninsured, water investment falls short of need, and nature-related disclosure is spreading.
NEXUS
Synthesis
The water system is well studied and thinly governed at the scale where its risks travel.
S.6What this edition is, and is not
What this edition is
A baseline: the state of water access, scarcity, groundwater, glaciers and extremes in 2026, and the couplings through which water carries risk into energy, food, health and nature. It synthesises published global evidence; it ranks no country or basin.
What it is not
Not a water-stress ranking, an allocation recommendation or an assessment of any utility, basin authority or government. Water rights and management rest with national and local authorities and basin organisations.
What comes next
National water chapters and basin evidence feed the 2027 water edition through the federation. Each edition reports what changed against this baseline, observations, source revisions, method changes, scenario updates and corrections.
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 1WHO and UNICEF (eds.), Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000–2022: Special Focus on Gender. Joint Monitoring Programme, New York and Geneva, 2023.back
- 2UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace. UNESCO, Paris, 2024.back
- 5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
- 7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
- 17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
- 22M. M. Mekonnen and A. Y. Hoekstra, “Four billion people facing severe water scarcity,” Science Advances, vol. 2, e1500323, 2016.back
- 4UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible. UNESCO, Paris, 2022.back
- 20S. Jasechko, H. Seybold, D. Perrone et al., “Rapid groundwater decline and some cases of recovery in aquifers globally,” Nature, vol. 625, pp. 715–721, 2024.back
- 15FAO (ed.), The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture 2021: Systems at Breaking Point. FAO, Rome, 2021.back
- 14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2016.back
- 18Ramsar Convention Secretariat (ed.), Global Wetland Outlook 2025. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, 2025.back
- 10UN-Water (ed.), Blueprint for Acceleration: Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2023. United Nations, Geneva, 2023.back
- 9UNECE and UNESCO (eds.), Progress on Transboundary Water Cooperation: Global Status of SDG Indicator 6.5.2 and Acceleration Needs, 2024. United Nations, Geneva and Paris, 2024.back
- 38WHO (ed.), Burden of Disease Attributable to Unsafe Drinking-water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2019 Update. WHO, Geneva, 2023.back
- 39UNICEF (ed.), The Climate-Changed Child: A Children’s Climate Risk Index Supplement. UNICEF, New York, 2023.back