Key findings

Twelve findings carry the water baseline. They are grouped by coupling, never ranked. Each resolves to its source or, where Nexus analysis is involved, to its stated method.

3 min read1 figure0 tables15 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Water is where the systems meet
  4. 2Key findings
    1. 2.1 Headline finding
    2. 2.2 Water
    3. 2.3 Food
    4. 2.4 Energy
    5. 2.5 Health
    6. 2.6 Biodiversity
    7. 2.7 Climate forcing
    8. 2.8 Governance
    9. 2.9 Systemic
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Multi-basin drought under heat
  8. 6Lenses and readings
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

2.1Headline 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.

Figure 2.1People without services, 2022 (billion)
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Safely managed drinking water2.2
Safely managed sanitation3.5

Source: WHO/UNICEF JMP 20231.

Implication

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.

What would move it

The next JMP update, utility investment in fast-growing cities, and the commitments of the December 2026 UN Water Conference would each move this finding.

2.2Water

  1. ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-001

    2.2 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lacked safely managed sanitation in 2022.1

  2. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-002

    Roughly half of the world’s population experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year.222

  3. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-003

    Global water use has grown by about 1% a year over the past forty years.3

  4. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-004

    2023 was the driest year for global rivers in 33 years, and glaciers lost more than 600 Gt of water.5

  5. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-005

    Groundwater supplies about half of domestic withdrawals and about a quarter of irrigation water; declines have accelerated in many aquifers.420

2.3Food

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FOO-006

    Agriculture accounts for about 70% of freshwater withdrawals, tying water stress directly to food production and prices.215

2.4Energy

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-007

    Energy production accounts for about 10% of global freshwater withdrawals, mainly for cooling thermal power plants.14

2.5Health

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-HLT-008

    Unsafe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene caused about 1.4 million deaths in 2019.38

2.6Biodiversity

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-BIO-009

    Freshwater wildlife populations declined by 85% on average between 1970 and 2020, and 22% of wetland area has been lost since 1970.1718

2.7Climate forcing

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-CLI-010

    Floods, severe storms and wildfires caused US$166 billion of the US$224 billion in natural-disaster losses in 2025.7

2.8Governance

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-011

    153 countries share transboundary rivers, lakes or aquifers; most do not yet have operational arrangements covering all of them.9

2.9Systemic

  1. Expert inputEQL 2NRF-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-SYS-012

    The leading compound pathway for 2027 testing is a multi-basin drought that cuts hydropower and irrigated yields at once while heat raises demand. § scenario

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

  1. 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
  2. 10UN-Water (ed.), Blueprint for Acceleration: Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2023. United Nations, Geneva, 2023.back
  3. 2UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace. UNESCO, Paris, 2024.back
  4. 22M. M. Mekonnen and A. Y. Hoekstra, “Four billion people facing severe water scarcity,” Science Advances, vol. 2, e1500323, 2016.back
  5. 3UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2023: Partnerships and Cooperation for Water. UNESCO, Paris, 2023.back
  6. 5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
  7. 4UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible. UNESCO, Paris, 2022.back
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2016.back
  11. 38WHO (ed.), Burden of Disease Attributable to Unsafe Drinking-water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2019 Update. WHO, Geneva, 2023.back
  12. 17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
  13. 18Ramsar Convention Secretariat (ed.), Global Wetland Outlook 2025. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, 2025.back
  14. 7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
  15. 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

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 2: Key findings. In Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the World’s Water System (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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Sector signature

The sectors behind Global Water.

A reading aid: the sectors the findings run through and how strongly they depend on each other.

Select corners · hover lines6 / 15 relations

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Water and its partners

Water gives irrigation to food (0.8), cooling water and hydropower to energy (0.6) and environmental flows to biodiversity (0.6).

W · E · I · F · H · B

Sectors
4 of 6
Relations
6 of 15
Coupling
0.43 share of total

Strongest relations in play

  • Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
  • Water → Energy · cooling water and hydropower0.6
  • Water → Food · irrigation0.8
  • Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
Teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements for any place. Coupling is the summed strength of the relations in play, as a share of all fifteen.
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