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Baseline Edition 2026
Complete edition

Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026

The State of the World’s Water System

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ReportsGS-01

Global Sector Risk and Resilience

Global Water 2026

The State of the World’s Water System

Baseline Edition 2026NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINEGCRI for the Nexus Consortium

Imprint

Editor: Saeed Valadbaygi, Chief Steward and Managing Editor, the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Publisher of record: The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto
Report number: NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE
Evidence close: 30 September 2026, cut DC-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-B0
Status: Draft under stewardship review; not yet released
DOI and UNI: Issued at deposit
Licence: CC BY 4.0 for Nexus-authored text, tables and figures; third-party material keeps its own licence
Cite as: Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). 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). https://therisk.global/nexus-reports/editions/gs-01/

Contents

·
Executive summary
1
Chapter 1. Water is where the systems meet
2
Chapter 2. Key findings
3
Chapter 3. Systems and sectors at baseline
4
Chapter 4. Risks and capability
5
Chapter 5. Multi-basin drought under heat
6
Chapter 6. Lenses and readings
7
Chapter 7. The 2027 agenda
8
Chapter 8. Systems in depth
A
Annex A. Methodology
B
Annex B. Data appendix
C
Annex C. References and record

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.

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

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.

Figure S.1People without services, 2022 (billion)

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

2.2billion

without safely managed water¹

3.5billion

without safely managed sanitation¹

≈70%

of withdrawals for agriculture²

153countries

sharing transboundary waters⁹

1.4million

WASH-attributable deaths, 2019³⁸

739million

children in high water scarcity³⁹

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

Global Water 2026
Chapter 1

Water is where the systems meet

Part I describes systems and their couplings. It ranks no country or basin and assesses no utility or authority.

7 min read2 figures2 tables18 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

Where is water risk concentrated, in access, scarcity, groundwater or extremes?
Which couplings carry water shocks into energy, food and health?
Which water capabilities hold under compound stress?
What must basin evidence measure first in 2027?

In this part

Narrative
Headline finding
Lead figure
Five coupling chapters
Twelve-domain reading
Sector screens
Dependency matrix
Risk objects
Capability ladder
Scenario
Three lenses
Portfolio

1.2The argument

Water is usually reported as a sector: utilities, irrigation, flood defence. The 2026 evidence reads it as the medium through which almost every other system’s risk travels. Agriculture takes about 70% of withdrawals², thermal power plants and hydropower depend on flows¹⁴, disease follows unsafe water³⁸, and freshwater ecosystems are declining faster than any other realm¹⁷.

Access is still unfinished. In 2022, 2.2 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water, 3.5 billion lacked safely managed sanitation and 2 billion lacked basic hygiene facilities at home¹. At current rates the world will not reach the 2030 targets for water and sanitation¹⁰. Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene were linked to about 1.4 million deaths in 2019, most of them from diarrhoeal disease³⁸.

Scarcity is now a seasonal condition for half of humanity. Roughly half of the world’s people experience severe water scarcity for at least part of the year²²², and global water use has risen by about 1% a year for four decades³. About 739 million children live in areas of high or extremely high water scarcity³⁹.

The water cycle itself is shifting. 2023 was the driest year for global rivers in 33 years, and glaciers lost more than 600 gigatonnes of water, the largest loss in five decades⁵. Glacier mass loss has accelerated this century²¹, and groundwater declines have accelerated in many of the world’s aquifers²⁰. Groundwater supplies about half of domestic water and a quarter of irrigation⁴.

Extremes carry the costs. Floods, severe storms and wildfires caused US$166 billion of the US$224 billion in natural-disaster losses in 2025⁷. Drought is less visible in loss data, but it moves through food prices, hydropower output and public budgets. Water scarcity could cost some regions up to 6% of GDP by 2050³⁵.

Governance is shared and incomplete. 153 countries share transboundary rivers, lakes or aquifers, but most do not yet have operational arrangements covering all of them⁹. The December 2026 UN Water Conference is the first chance since 2023 to set a common direction⁴³.

This edition therefore reads water as the coupling layer of the WEFH+B system. The matrix, risk objects, capability ladder and scenario that follow ask the same two questions: where does a water shock travel next, and who holds the capability to stop it?

Figure 1.1How far is the world from universal water, sanitation and hygiene? People without services, 2022 (billion)

More people lack safe sanitation than safe drinking water. All three gaps are concentrated in the same places, low-income, rural and fragile settings, so they compound each other’s health effects¹.

Item	Bar, scaled to the largest value	Value
Safely managed sanitation		3.5
Safely managed drinking water		2.2
Basic hygiene		2

Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2022.

Figure ID FIG-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-01-003

1.4million

WASH-attributable deaths, 2019³⁸

739million

children in high water scarcity³⁹

≈50%

of people with severe seasonal scarcity²

2030target

universal access under SDG 6²⁹

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

The water-centred matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems, read for their water content. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited assessments and analogue events; they set the graph that basin evidence will test in 2027.

Figure 1.2Couplings between the five systems

Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.

Strong
Moderate
Weak

Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.

Table 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
From, to	WAT	ENE	FOO	HLT	BIO
WAT Water	·	STRONG hydro · thermal cooling	STRONG irrigation · rain-fed yield	STRONG safe water · sanitation	STRONG flows · wetlands
ENE Energy	MODERATE pumping · treatment · desalination	·	STRONG fuel · fertiliser · cold chain	STRONG air pollution · cooling	MODERATE land use · mining
FOO Food	STRONG ≈70% of withdrawals	WEAK bioenergy feedstock	·	STRONG nutrition · food safety	STRONG land conversion
HLT Health	WEAK workforce	WEAK workforce	MODERATE labour · disease	·	WEAK residues
BIO Biodiversity	STRONG regulation · filtration	MODERATE biomass · hydrology	STRONG pollination · soils	MODERATE zoonoses · medicines	·
Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A.

Transmission paths

01
CLI → WAT → ENE
Drought lowers reservoirs and warms cooling water; hydro and thermal output fall.
Reported 2022 drought, Europe and China
02
CLI → WAT → FOO
Multi-basin drought cuts irrigated and rain-fed yields.
Inferred 2010–2012 droughts
03
WAT → HLT
Floods contaminate supplies and spread disease.
Reported major floods since 2010
04
FOO → WAT → BIO
Irrigation expansion depletes aquifers and river flows.
Reported aquifer declines²⁰
05
WAT → FIN
Flood losses fall on the uninsured and on public budgets.
Reported 2025 losses⁷

1.4Reinforcing loops

A shock entering either system of a loop can return amplified through the other.

Table 1.2Pairs of systems where both directions are rated strong
Loop	First direction	Second direction
WAT and FOO	Water to food: irrigation · rain-fed yield	Food to water: ≈70% of withdrawals
WAT and BIO	Water to biodiversity: flows · wetlands	Biodiversity to water: regulation · filtration
FOO and BIO	Food to biodiversity: land conversion	Biodiversity to food: pollination · soils
A causal-loop reading of the matrix (Sterman, Business Dynamics, 2000): structural, from estimated strengths, not a measured feedback.

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

2UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace. UNESCO, Paris, 2024.back
14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2016.back
38WHO (ed.), Burden of Disease Attributable to Unsafe Drinking-water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2019 Update. WHO, Geneva, 2023.back
17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
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
10UN-Water (ed.), Blueprint for Acceleration: Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2023. United Nations, Geneva, 2023.back
22M. M. Mekonnen and A. Y. Hoekstra, “Four billion people facing severe water scarcity,” Science Advances, vol. 2, e1500323, 2016.back
3UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2023: Partnerships and Cooperation for Water. UNESCO, Paris, 2023.back
39UNICEF (ed.), The Climate-Changed Child: A Children’s Climate Risk Index Supplement. UNICEF, New York, 2023.back
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
21R. Hugonnet, R. McNabb, E. Berthier et al., “Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century,” Nature, vol. 592, pp. 726–731, 2021.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
4UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible. UNESCO, Paris, 2022.back
7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
35World Bank (ed.), High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy. World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016.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
43S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Reports, The Foundational Edition, Volumes I and II. Reports series, Edition 2026–2030, V1.0. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026.back
29United Nations General Assembly (ed.), Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, resolution 70/1. United Nations, New York, 2015.back

Global Water 2026
Chapter 2

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

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)

Item	Bar, scaled to the largest value	Value
Safely managed drinking water		2.2
Safely managed sanitation		3.5

Source: WHO/UNICEF JMP 2023¹.

Implication

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

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
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
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
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
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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Global Water 2026
Chapter 3

Systems and sectors at baseline

4 min read0 figures2 tables13 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

3.1Where each system stood at evidence close

WAT · Water

People without safely managed drinking water

2.2billion

and 2 billion without basic hygiene services at home.

Reported2022JMP¹

ENE · Energy

Share of global freshwater withdrawals for energy

≈10%

mostly cooling for thermal power; hydropower adds storage and flow dependence.

Reported2014IEA¹⁴

FOO · Food

Share of withdrawals used by agriculture

≈70%

Irrigated land produces a large share of the world’s food from a minority of cropland.

ReportedrecentUNWWDR² · FAO¹⁵

HLT · Health

Deaths attributable to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene

1.4million

in 2019, most of them from diarrhoeal disease.

Reported2019WHO³⁸

BIO · Biodiversity

Average decline of freshwater wildlife populations

−85%

1970–2020, the steepest decline of any realm.

Reported1970–2020WWF¹⁷

SYS · Cross-system

Driest year for global rivers in 33 years

2023

Glaciers lost more than 600 Gt of water in the same year.

Reported2023WMO⁵

3.2Domain posture

Each of the twelve coupled domains is read through water, in words, not scored. The coupling column names the dependency that carries water risk into each domain.

Table 3.1Each domain read in words, not scored
Domain	Posture at baseline	Coupling	Status
WAT	Access unfinished; scarcity seasonal for half of humanity; groundwater and glaciers declining.	the core system	Reported EQL 4
ENE	About 10% of withdrawals; hydropower and thermal cooling exposed to low flows and heat.	WAT → ENE	Reported EQL 3
FOO	About 70% of withdrawals; irrigated yields depend on groundwater and glacier-fed rivers.	WAT → FOO	Reported EQL 4
HLT	1.4 million WASH-attributable deaths in 2019; floods spread water-borne disease.	WAT → HLT	Reported EQL 4
BIO	Freshwater wildlife down 85%; wetlands down 22% since 1970.	WAT ↔ BIO	Reported EQL 4
CLI	Drier rivers, faster glacier loss and more intense extremes with warming.	CLI → WAT	Reported EQL 5
INF	Ageing networks, storage and flood defences; inland shipping exposed to low water.	WAT ↔ INF	Inferred EQL 3
FIN	Flood losses large and often uninsured; water scarcity could cost some regions up to 6% of GDP by 2050.	WAT → FIN	Reported EQL 3
DAT	Water monitoring data are sparse for groundwater and quality.	DAT → WAT	Expert input EQL 2
AIC	Data centres add cooling-water demand; volumes not consolidated globally.	AIC → WAT	Expert input EQL 2
MIN	Mining and refining use and pollute water in already stressed basins.	MIN → WAT	Inferred EQL 2
TRD	Food trade moves “virtual water”; export restrictions follow droughts.	WAT → TRD	Inferred EQL 3

3.3Sector screens

All sixteen sectors are screened for their dependence on water, on the same grammar as every national edition. The evidence column describes coverage of the baseline evidence, not the performance of the sector.

Table 3.2Sectors: baseline evidence and the exposure to watch
Code	Sector	Baseline evidence	Exposure to watch	Evidence coverage
GS-00	Cross-system	water couples all five core systems⁴⁶	multi-basin drought	PARTIAL
GS-01	Water	access gaps; seasonal scarcity for half of humanity¹²	drought, flood, depletion	GOOD
GS-02	Energy	about 10% of withdrawals¹⁴	low flows and hot cooling water	PARTIAL
GS-03	Food	about 70% of withdrawals²	aquifer decline; drought	GOOD
GS-04	Health	1.4 million WASH deaths, 2019³⁸	water-borne disease after floods	GOOD
GS-05	Finance	up to 6% of GDP at stake in some regions³⁵	uninsured flood losses	PARTIAL
GS-06	Development	739 million children in high scarcity³⁹	access gaps in fragile settings	PARTIAL
GS-07	Climate	driest year for rivers in 33 years⁵	glacier loss; intensifying extremes	GOOD
GS-08	Disaster	floods among the costliest perils⁷	concurrent floods and droughts	GOOD
GS-09	Infrastructure	ageing water networks and dams	failure and low-water navigation	THIN
GS-10	Cities	urban demand rising fastest	shortage and pluvial flooding	PARTIAL
GS-11	Biodiversity	freshwater wildlife −85%¹⁷	flow alteration; pollution	GOOD
GS-12	Earth observation	satellite gravimetry tracks storage¹⁹	continuity of missions	PARTIAL
GS-13	Cyber and digital	control systems for utilities	attacks on water systems	THIN
GS-14	Policy	153 countries share basins⁹	arrangements incomplete	PARTIAL
GS-15	Science	deep hydrological science	groundwater and quality data	PARTIAL

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
14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2016.back
2UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace. UNESCO, Paris, 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
38WHO (ed.), Burden of Disease Attributable to Unsafe Drinking-water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2019 Update. WHO, Geneva, 2023.back
17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
46P. D. McElwee, P. A. Harrison, T. L. van Huysen et al. (eds.), Thematic Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health. IPBES secretariat, Bonn, 2024. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13850054. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13850054 back
35World Bank (ed.), High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy. World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016.back
39UNICEF (ed.), The Climate-Changed Child: A Children’s Climate Risk Index Supplement. UNICEF, New York, 2023.back
7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
19M. Rodell, J. S. Famiglietti, D. N. Wiese et al., “Emerging trends in global freshwater availability,” Nature, vol. 557, pp. 651–659, 2018.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

Global Water 2026
Chapter 4

Risks and capability

Four water risk objects open the portfolio. Order carries no rank. Each is read across driver, exposure, vulnerability, capacity, cascade and consequence.

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4.1Risk objects

Each risk is read across the chain from hazard to consequence, with its status and evidence-quality level.

InferredEQL 3RSK-GS01-WAT-001
Multi-basin drought
Driver
heat and low precipitation across several major basins
Exposure
hydropower, irrigated agriculture, cities
Vulnerability
low storage; over-allocated rivers
Capacity
storage, demand management, trade
Cascade
WAT → ENE, FOO → TRD
Horizon
1–3 years
ReportedEQL 3RSK-GS01-WAT-002
Groundwater depletion in irrigated aquifers
Driver
pumping above recharge
Exposure
irrigated food production; rural supply
Vulnerability
falling water tables; salinisation
Capacity
monitoring; allocation; managed recharge
Cascade
WAT → FOO → HLT
Horizon
5–10 years
ReportedEQL 4RSK-GS01-CLI-003
Riverine and urban flooding
Driver
extreme rainfall; storm surge; snowmelt
Exposure
cities, floodplains, deltas
Vulnerability
informal settlements; thin insurance
Capacity
early warning; defences; nature-based solutions
Cascade
WAT → INF, HLT, FIN
Horizon
annual
ReportedEQL 3RSK-GS01-CRY-004
Loss of glacier-fed summer flows
Driver
accelerating glacier mass loss²¹
Exposure
mountain-fed basins in Asia, the Andes and the Alps
Vulnerability
dependence on dry-season melt
Capacity
storage; adaptation planning
Cascade
WAT → FOO, ENE
Horizon
10 years and beyond

4.2Capability ladder

Existence is not readiness. Each of the fifteen capability functions is placed on the ladder by the strongest public evidence for water at the global level.

Table 4.1Capabilities on the ladder of evidence: listed, exists, demonstrated, tested
Function	Level	Strongest public evidence at baseline
Prevention and mitigation	EXISTS	integrated water management plans widespread; implementation uneven¹⁰
Monitoring and observation	ADEQUATE	river and satellite storage records strong; groundwater and quality sparse⁵¹⁹
Early warning	DEMONSTRATED	flood warning in real events; 108 countries report multi-hazard systems³³
Preparedness and planning	EXISTS	drought plans in many countries; few tested at scale
Redundancy and reserves	EXISTS	reservoir and aquifer storage; strategic reserves rare
Response	DEMONSTRATED	emergency water supply after disasters
Continuity of critical services	EXISTS	utility continuity plans; supply interrupted in severe events
Recovery	EXISTS	post-flood reconstruction programmes
Adaptation	EXISTS	storage, reuse and desalination expanding
Social protection	LISTED	water-specific support for poor households rarely documented
Finance and insurance	EXISTS	flood cover thin in many regions; water investment below need³⁶
Institutional coordination	EXISTS	transboundary arrangements incomplete⁹
Technical infrastructure	EXISTS	networks ageing; losses from leakage widespread
Workforce	LISTED	skills gaps in utilities widely reported
Research capacity	ADEQUATE	strong hydrological science; translation uneven¹²
A capability listed in policy is not a tested one; each rung is the strongest public evidence at baseline.

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

21R. Hugonnet, R. McNabb, E. Berthier et al., “Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century,” Nature, vol. 592, pp. 726–731, 2021.back
10UN-Water (ed.), Blueprint for Acceleration: Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2023. United Nations, Geneva, 2023.back
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
19M. Rodell, J. S. Famiglietti, D. N. Wiese et al., “Emerging trends in global freshwater availability,” Nature, vol. 557, pp. 651–659, 2018.back
33WMO and UNDRR (eds.), Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2024. WMO and UNDRR, Geneva, 2024.back
36OECD (ed.), Financing a Water Secure Future. OECD Publishing, Paris, 2022.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
12R. Caretta, A. Mukherji et al., “Water,” in H.-O. Pörtner et al. (eds.), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, pp. 551–712. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022.back

Global Water 2026
Chapter 5

Multi-basin drought under heat

A conditional statement under stated assumptions, never a prediction.

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5.1Assumptions

Scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01: what is assumed, and what is held constant.

Baseline: the 2026 reference state in this edition
Drivers: a strong warm season with below-normal precipitation across several major basins in the same year
Analogues: 2022 drought in Europe and China; 2010–2012 droughts
Interventions: none modelled, the specification describes the unmitigated case
Run state: narrative specification; quantified run scheduled for 2027

5.2The cascade, step by step

1
CLI → WAT
low precipitation and heat cut river flows and reservoir inflow
2022
2
WAT → ENE
hydro output falls; thermal plants curtail for hot cooling water
2022
3
WAT → FOO
irrigation restrictions and heat cut yields
2022 · 2012
4
WAT → INF
low river levels restrict inland shipping
2022
5
WAT → HLT
urban rationing; water-quality problems
2018 Cape Town
6
FOO → TRD
export restrictions transmit the shock
2010

5.3The scenario as a table of steps

How the shock in scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01 would travel through Global Water’s coupled systems, step by step, under the assumptions the edition states.

Step	What happens	Source
01 Climate to water	Low precipitation and heat cut river flows and reservoir inflow. Analogue or source: 2022.	Edition GS-01, scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01, step 1
02 Water to energy	Hydro output falls; thermal plants curtail for hot cooling water. Analogue or source: 2022.	Edition GS-01, scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01, step 2
03 Water to food	Irrigation restrictions and heat cut yields. Analogue or source: 2022 · 2012.	Edition GS-01, scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01, step 3
04 Water to infrastructure	Low river levels restrict inland shipping. Analogue or source: 2022.	Edition GS-01, scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01, step 4
05 Water to health	Urban rationing; water-quality problems. Analogue or source: 2018 Cape Town.	Edition GS-01, scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01, step 5
06 Food to trade	Export restrictions transmit the shock. Analogue or source: 2010.	Edition GS-01, scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01, step 6

A teaching model of a conditional scenario under the edition’s stated assumptions: not a forecast, not a prediction and not a warning. Sources: Global Water 2026, scenario SCN-GS01-MBD-01 (2026); Global Water 2026, references (NR-CIT-1) (2026).

Global Water 2026
Chapter 6

Lenses and readings

The water baseline is read through each steward’s lens, then once as a whole. Each lens is a projection of reviewed findings, not a separate argument.

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6.1Three lenses

One edition, read by each steward. The lens of this site comes first.

GRA · KEY F

Capital Meaning

Readiness implications only. Flood losses are large and often uninsured, water investment falls short of need³⁶, and nature-related disclosure is spreading³². These show where finance-readiness evidence will matter. Nothing here is advice, a rating or an approval.

CLI-010 · WAT-002

GCRI · KEY T

Technical Truth

The evidence supports reading water as the coupling layer of the WEFH+B system. Access remains unfinished, scarcity is seasonal for half of humanity, and the cycle is shifting: drier rivers, faster glacier loss and declining aquifers. Evidence is strongest for access and hydrology, and weakest for groundwater and quality.

WAT-001 · WAT-004 · WAT-005 · SYS-012

GRF · KEY M

Public Meaning

For most people water risk arrives as a dry tap, a flooded street or a higher food price. The baseline asks that public debate treat water as shared infrastructure for health, food and energy, and that the 2.2 billion without safe water stay at its centre.

WAT-001 · HLT-008 · FOO-006

NEXUS

Synthesis

The water system is well studied and thinly governed at the scale where its risks travel. The 2027 programme should bind basin evidence, test the multi-basin drought pathway, and map groundwater dependence before it becomes a food shock.

SYS-012 · W-01 · W-02

6.2Global Risks Alliance reading: 2027 water readiness pack

The registers that open the 2027 global cycle. At baseline each is initialised from this edition.

Table 6.12027 water readiness pack
Item	Register	State at baseline	First 2027 entry
E1	Water risk state delta	baseline set by this edition	changes against the baseline
E2	WEFH+B state delta	five global system readings set	indicator updates and freshness
E3	Agenda and Portfolio movement	eight agenda items · six proposed objects	admission decisions
E4	Federation delivery register	Canada and Global issued	national water chapters
E5	Consortium capability register	national consortia forming	first contributions
E6	Leadership questions and challenges	none yet	first challenge log
E7	Foundry technical state	national environments prepared	first federation cut
E8	Publication candidates	twelve findings carried forward	PUBLISH · HOLD dispositions
E9	Universe readiness	one candidate mission	admission and role spine
E10	Correction register	none	first federation-wide cycle

Publication dispositions

Publish
Hold
Needs evidence
Restricted
Superseded

6.3GCRI reading: the model card

GCRI’s reading of this edition is its model card: what the national model is, what it computes and where it stops. It is printed in full in Annex A, with the methods it belongs to. Annex A, methodology

6.4Global Risks Forum reading: editorial essays

Four signed essays by the Reports editorial team set out the positions this edition takes. They are interpretation, labelled as such; the evidence they draw on is in the findings register.

Every drought this decade has been an energy event, a food event and a health event at once. Treating water as a utility service understates how it carries risk between systems. The water edition is built on that coupling: each chapter asks where a water shock goes next.

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 01

Water is a coupling, not a sector

Groundwater supplies about half of domestic water and a quarter of irrigation, yet it is the least measured part of the system. Declines that accelerate quietly become food and livelihood shocks when wells run dry. Measuring aquifers is the cheapest adaptation available.

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 02

Groundwater is the hidden reserve

The 2.2 billion people without safely managed drinking water are also the people least able to absorb a drought or a flood. Closing service gaps is not separate from climate adaptation; it is its foundation.

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 03

Access is adaptation

Wetlands store floodwater, filter supply and sustain fisheries. Losing more than a fifth of them since 1970 has removed a capability that would cost far more to build in concrete.

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 04

Freshwater nature is infrastructure

6.5Nexus Standards reading: standards and regulatory watch

International instruments that shape the systems in this edition, by status on the retrieval date. The edition assesses no one’s compliance.

IN FORCE
ADOPTED
ADOPTED · OPEN FOR SIGNATURE
PUBLISHED · VOLUNTARY

Table 6.2Standards and regulatory watch
Instrument	Body	Scope	Status	Relevance
Human right to water and sanitation, resolution 64/292²⁶	UN General Assembly	global	ADOPTED 2010	access
SDG 6, water and sanitation for all²⁹	United Nations	global	ADOPTED 2015	2030 targets
UN Watercourses Convention²⁷	United Nations	international watercourses	IN FORCE	transboundary basins
UNECE Water Convention²⁸	UNECE	open to all UN members	IN FORCE	transboundary cooperation
Sendai Framework 2015–2030²⁵	UNDRR	global	ADOPTED 2015	flood and drought risk
Kunming-Montreal Framework³⁰	CBD	global	ADOPTED 2022	freshwater restoration
Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality³⁷	WHO	global	PUBLISHED · GUIDANCE	water quality
TNFD recommendations³²	TNFD	market-led	PUBLISHED · VOLUNTARY	nature disclosure

Changed since 2024

The Global Wetland Outlook 2025 updated wetland loss estimates¹⁸
The UN Water Conference was convened for December 2026⁴³
Nature-related disclosure frameworks spread through markets³²

To watch in 2027

Commitments of the 2026 UN Water Conference⁴³
New accessions to the UNECE Water Convention²⁸
National biodiversity strategies’ freshwater targets³⁰

6.6Risk Academy reading: literature and evidence review, science and assessments

The review behind this edition covers water assessments, peer-reviewed hydrology and the institutional reports that bind its findings. Systematic reviews for each agenda item begin in 2027.

Review protocol

Question: What does the published evidence establish about the global water system and its couplings?
Sources searched: UN water reports; IPCC and IPBES assessments; peer-reviewed hydrology; loss data
Window: releases available at evidence close, 30 September 2026
Selection: sources that bind or contextualise a finding in this edition
Next step: systematic reviews for agenda items W-01 to W-05 in 2027

Table 6.3Peer-reviewed science and assessments
Reference	Type	Year	Role	Used for
Caretta et al.¹²	assessment chapter	2022	supports	water and climate
Lee and Romero (eds.)¹¹	assessment	2023	context	forcing
McElwee et al. (eds.)⁴⁷	assessment	2024	framework	nexus interlinkages
Rodell et al.¹⁹	journal article	2018	supports	storage trends
Jasechko et al.²⁰	journal article	2024	supports	groundwater declines
Hugonnet et al.²¹	journal article	2021	supports	glacier loss
Mekonnen and Hoekstra²²	journal article	2016	supports	severe scarcity
Hoekstra and Mekonnen²³	journal article	2012	context	water footprint
Zscheischler et al.⁴⁰	journal article	2018	framework	compound events

Table 6.4Institutional flagships
Reference	Issuer	Year	Role	Used for
UN World Water Development Reports²³⁴	UNESCO	2022–24	supports	use, scarcity, groundwater
State of Global Water Resources⁵	WMO	2024	supports	rivers, glaciers
SDG 6 synthesis¹⁰	UN-Water	2023	supports	progress to 2030
Economics of Water⁸	GCEW	2024	context	economic stakes

Table 6.5UN statistics and monitoring
Reference	Issuer	Year	Role	Used for
JMP 2023¹	WHO · UNICEF	2023	supports	access
WASH burden of disease³⁸	WHO	2023	supports	health
Transboundary cooperation⁹	UNECE · UNESCO	2024	supports	governance
Children’s climate risk³⁹	UNICEF	2023	supports	children in scarcity
Land and water resources¹⁵	FAO	2021	supports	agriculture
SOFI 2025¹⁶	FAO and partners	2025	context	food security

Table 6.6Energy, nature, finance and loss data
Reference	Issuer	Year	Role	Used for
Water–Energy Nexus¹⁴	IEA	2016	supports	energy withdrawals
Energy and AI¹³	IEA	2025	context	data-centre demand
Living Planet Report¹⁷	WWF	2024	supports	freshwater wildlife
Global Wetland Outlook¹⁸	Ramsar	2025	supports	wetland loss
High and Dry³⁵	World Bank	2016	supports	GDP at stake
NatCatSERVICE⁷	Munich Re	2026	supports	flood losses

Where the evidence agrees

Access gaps persist and 2030 targets are off track¹¹⁰
Glacier mass loss is accelerating⁵²¹
Freshwater biodiversity is declining fastest¹⁷

Where it is unsettled

How fast major aquifers will fail at current pumping²⁰
How drought frequency will change in specific basins¹²
How much water data centres will use by 2030¹³

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

36OECD (ed.), Financing a Water Secure Future. OECD Publishing, Paris, 2022.back
32Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (ed.), Recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. TNFD, London, 2023.back
26United Nations General Assembly (ed.), The human right to water and sanitation, resolution 64/292. United Nations, New York, 28 July 2010.back
29United Nations General Assembly (ed.), Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, resolution 70/1. United Nations, New York, 2015.back
27United Nations (ed.), Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses. United Nations, New York, 1997.back
28UNECE (ed.), Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes. UNECE, Helsinki, 1992.back
25UNDRR (ed.), Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. UNDRR, Geneva, 2015.back
30Convention on Biological Diversity (ed.), Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Decision 15/4. CBD Secretariat, Montreal, 2022.back
37WHO (ed.), Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality, 4th ed. incorporating the first and second addenda. WHO, Geneva, 2022.back
18Ramsar Convention Secretariat (ed.), Global Wetland Outlook 2025. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, 2025.back
43S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Reports, The Foundational Edition, Volumes I and II. Reports series, Edition 2026–2030, V1.0. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026.back
12R. Caretta, A. Mukherji et al., “Water,” in H.-O. Pörtner et al. (eds.), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, pp. 551–712. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022.back
11H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.), Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. IPCC, Geneva, 2023.back
47IFRS Foundation (ed.), IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures. International Sustainability Standards Board, London, 2023.back
19M. Rodell, J. S. Famiglietti, D. N. Wiese et al., “Emerging trends in global freshwater availability,” Nature, vol. 557, pp. 651–659, 2018.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
21R. Hugonnet, R. McNabb, E. Berthier et al., “Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century,” Nature, vol. 592, pp. 726–731, 2021.back
22M. M. Mekonnen and A. Y. Hoekstra, “Four billion people facing severe water scarcity,” Science Advances, vol. 2, e1500323, 2016.back
23A. Y. Hoekstra and M. M. Mekonnen, “The water footprint of humanity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, pp. 3232–3237, 2012.back
40J. Zscheischler, S. Westra, B. J. J. M. van den Hurk et al., “Future climate risk from compound events,” Nature Climate Change, vol. 8, pp. 469–477, 2018.back
2UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace. UNESCO, Paris, 2024.back
3UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2023: Partnerships and Cooperation for Water. UNESCO, Paris, 2023.back
4UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible. UNESCO, Paris, 2022.back
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
10UN-Water (ed.), Blueprint for Acceleration: Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2023. United Nations, Geneva, 2023.back
8Global Commission on the Economics of Water (ed.), The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good. GCEW, Paris, 2024.back
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
38WHO (ed.), Burden of Disease Attributable to Unsafe Drinking-water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2019 Update. WHO, 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
39UNICEF (ed.), The Climate-Changed Child: A Children’s Climate Risk Index Supplement. UNICEF, New York, 2023.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
16FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (eds.), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025. FAO, Rome, 2025.back
14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2016.back
13International Energy Agency (ed.), Energy and AI. World Energy Outlook Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2025.back
17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
35World Bank (ed.), High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy. World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016.back
7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back

Global Water 2026
Chapter 7

The 2027 agenda

Eight bounded questions open the 2027 water agenda. Each comes from a baseline finding, names the initiative that will carry it and the first output due in the 2027 water edition.

5 min read0 figures6 tables3 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

7.1Questions for the operational series

W-01
How would a multi-year drought across several major basins affect hydropower, irrigated yields and urban supply at the same time?
INI-GS01-MBD-01 · multi-basin drought; first output: concurrency analysis for six basins.
W-02
Where are the major irrigated aquifers declining fastest, and how much food production depends on them?
INI-GS01-GWT-02 · groundwater dependence; first output: aquifer–crop dependence register.
W-03
How much water will data centres and the energy transition need by 2030, and where?
INI-GS01-ENE-03 · water for energy and compute; first output: regional demand estimates.
W-04
How fast are glacier-fed basins approaching peak water, and who depends on their summer flows?
INI-GS01-CRY-04 · glacier-fed basins; first output: basin dependence map.
W-05
Where do flood losses fall on the uninsured, and which capabilities reduce them?
INI-GS01-FLD-05 · flood protection gap; first output: flood loss and cover table.
W-06
Which transboundary basins lack operational arrangements where stress is rising?
To be admitted in 2027; first output: arrangement–stress overlay.
W-07
How do water quality and wastewater gaps couple to health in fast-growing cities?
To be admitted in 2027; first output: scoping note.
W-08
Which water capabilities have been tested in real droughts and floods, and which are only planned?
Water capability register; first output: rung evidence for 15 functions.

7.2Portfolio proposed for the Q1 2027 alignment

Five initiatives and one Universe mission candidate are proposed for the 2027 water portfolio. They are programme objects, no partner, funder or member is attached to them in this edition.

Table 7.1Objects proposed for the first operational quarter
ID	Object	Kind	Question	State
INI-GS01-MBD-01	Multi-basin drought concurrency	Initiative	W-01	PROPOSED
INI-GS01-GWT-02	Groundwater dependence of food production	Initiative	W-02	PROPOSED
INI-GS01-ENE-03	Water for energy and compute	Initiative	W-03	PROPOSED
INI-GS01-CRY-04	Glacier-fed basin dependence	Initiative	W-04	PROPOSED
INI-GS01-FLD-05	Flood protection gap	Initiative	W-05	PROPOSED
MSN-GS01-2027-01	Multi-basin drought Universe mission	Mission	W-01	Candidate

7.3The pathway

The water edition reads national water chapters, regional basin evidence and the global edition through one governed evidence graph. At baseline the federation is designed; Canada’s and the global water chapters are issued.

01
National water chapters
water system of each national edition
CANADA ISSUED · 25 further national baselines
02
Basin and regional evidence
shared basins and aquifers
PLANNED · regional Baseline Editions
03
Water sector model
the global water system of systems
v0 SPECIFIED · v1 with federation evidence
04
Global and strategic links
GLB · SR-07 food–water–energy · SR-09 boundaries
GLB ISSUED · SR pilots in 2026–2027
05
Universe
annual proving environment
CANDIDATE MISSION · mandate in 2027
06
Global Water Report
this series
BASELINE ISSUED · 2027 annual edition
07
Evidence and correction
one graph, many projections
OPEN · first correction cycle in 2027

7.4Universe 2027, evidence pack for the water candidate mission

01
Mandate
02
Core Build · 1 month
03
Action · 1 week
04
Evidence seal
05
Portfolio correction
06
Next mandate

Table 7.2Universe 2027, evidence pack for the water candidate mission
Item	Record	State	Timing
F1	Annual mandate record	PLANNED	after the Q2 2027 alignment
F2	Core Build record	PLANNED	one month before the exercise
F3	Exercise evidence	PLANNED	during the Action week
F4	Decision packets	PLANNED	exercise state only
F5	Proof receipts	PLANNED	scoped to each recorded check
F6	After-action report	PLANNED	within one quarter
F7	Upgrade docket	PLANNED	routed to the Portfolio
F8	Portfolio renewal	PLANNED	2027 global annual edition
F9	Public synthesis	PLANNED	public-safe extracts only

Mission

ID: MSN-GS01-2027-01 · multi-basin drought
Role spine: Leadership sponsor · Institutional anchor · Mission lead, drawn from national pathways
Receiving actors: to be identified with the mandate

7.5Handoffs and routing

Where the baseline’s findings go next. A handoff routes a finding for awareness, review or work; it transfers no authority.

Table 7.3Handoffs and routing
Finding	Routed to	Purpose	Class
WAT-001 · access	public record	reference for the 2027 series	PUBLIC
WAT-004 · rivers and glaciers	INI-GS01-CRY-04	glacier-fed basins	PUBLIC
WAT-005 · groundwater	INI-GS01-GWT-02	groundwater dependence	PUBLIC
ENE-007 · energy withdrawals	INI-GS01-ENE-03	water for energy and compute	PUBLIC
CLI-010 · flood losses	INI-GS01-FLD-05 · key F review	flood protection gap	PUBLIC
GOV-011 · transboundary	regional consortia	arrangement–stress overlay	PUBLIC
HLT-008 · WASH deaths	GS-04 Health edition	health coupling	PUBLIC
SYS-012 · compound pathway	MSN-GS01-2027-01	Universe candidate	CONSORTIUM

Table 7.4Routing rules by publication class
Class	Where it goes	Who can see it
PUBLIC	the published edition and its evidence bundle	anyone
CONSORTIUM	governed rooms of the federation	consortium members under agreement
CONTROLLED	need-to-know channels	named competent actors only

7.6Feeds and signal register

Table 7.5Feeds watched from 2027
Feed	Producer	Latency	Feeds into
Global Runoff Data Centre	WMO and BfG	periodic	WAT-004
Global flood awareness system (GloFAS)	Copernicus Emergency Management Service	daily	RSK-GS01-CLI-003
Hydrological status and outlook (HydroSOS)	WMO	monthly	SCN-GS01-MBD-01
Terrestrial water storage (GRACE-FO)	NASA and GFZ	monthly	WAT-005
AQUASTAT	FAO	periodic	FOO-006
JMP database	WHO · UNICEF	biennial	WAT-001
Disaster loss estimates	reinsurers and index providers	per event	CLI-010

Escalation routes

none · keep monitoring
research question
project
risk object
annual publication
signal report

Table 7.6Signals at baseline
ID	Signal	Corroboration	Systems	Route
SIG-GS01-001	Driest year for global rivers in 33 years in 2023⁵	CORROBORATED	WAT · ENE · FOO	research question W-01
SIG-GS01-002	Accelerating groundwater declines in many aquifers²⁰	CORROBORATED	WAT · FOO	initiative W-02
SIG-GS01-003	Rising cooling-water demand from data centres¹³	PARTIAL	WAT · ENE · AIC	research question W-03

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

5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.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
13International Energy Agency (ed.), Energy and AI. World Energy Outlook Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2025.back

Global Water 2026
Chapter 8

Systems in depth

One section per system: its state at evidence close, its exposures and what the operational series will watch.

6 min read0 figures5 tables20 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

8.1Water and energy

Energy uses water and water uses energy. Hydropower and thermal cooling make power supply sensitive to drought and heat; pumping, treatment and desalination make water supply sensitive to energy prices.

≈10%

of withdrawals for energy production¹⁴

≈415TWh

used by data centres, 2024¹³

2022analogue

drought cut hydro and cooling in Europe and China

Table 8.1State at baseline
Component	State	Evidence	Status
Hydropower	output falls with low flows and storage	⁵¹⁴	Reported
Thermal cooling	curtailment when water is scarce or too warm	¹⁴	Reported
Water for compute	cooling demand rising; volumes not consolidated	¹³	Expert input
Energy for water	pumping, treatment and desalination	¹⁴	Reported

Couplings

WAT → ENE hydro and cooling
ENE → WAT pumping and desalination
AIC → WAT data-centre cooling

Evidence to bind in 2027

data-centre water use by region
hydro exposure to multi-year drought

Related editions

GLB Global Systems
GS-02 Energy
GS-03 Food
GS-04 Health
GS-11 Biodiversity
SR-07 Food–water–energy

8.2Water and food

Food is the largest user of water. Irrigated agriculture depends on groundwater and on glacier- and snow-fed rivers, both of which are declining in key regions.

≈70%

of withdrawals for agriculture²

≈25%

of irrigation water from groundwater⁴

673million

people facing hunger, 2024¹⁶

Table 8.2State at baseline
Component	State	Evidence	Status
Irrigation	about 70% of withdrawals	²¹⁵	Reported
Groundwater	declines accelerating in many irrigated aquifers	²⁰	Reported
Rain-fed yields	exposed to drought and heat	¹²	Reported
Trade	food trade moves virtual water between basins	²³	Inferred

Couplings

WAT → FOO irrigation and rain-fed yields
FOO → WAT withdrawals and pollution
FOO → TRD price transmission

Evidence to bind in 2027

aquifer–crop dependence by region
concurrent drought across breadbaskets⁴¹

Related editions

GLB Global Systems
GS-02 Energy
GS-03 Food
GS-04 Health
GS-11 Biodiversity
SR-07 Food–water–energy

8.3Water and health

Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene remain a leading preventable cause of death. Floods spread disease; drought concentrates contaminants and strains hygiene.

1.4million

WASH-attributable deaths, 2019³⁸

2.0billion

without basic hygiene, 2022¹

3.5billion

without safely managed sanitation¹

Table 8.3State at baseline
Component	State	Evidence	Status
Diarrhoeal disease	most WASH-attributable deaths	³⁸	Reported
Floods	contamination and disease after events	¹²	Reported
Drought	water quality and hygiene strain	¹²	Inferred
Health facilities	many lack basic water services	¹	Reported

Couplings

WAT → HLT access and quality
CLI → WAT → HLT flood and drought
ENE → WAT → HLT treatment

Evidence to bind in 2027

water quality in fast-growing cities
WASH in health facilities

Related editions

GLB Global Systems
GS-02 Energy
GS-03 Food
GS-04 Health
GS-11 Biodiversity
SR-07 Food–water–energy

8.4Water and nature

Freshwater ecosystems regulate floods, filter water and sustain fisheries, and they are declining faster than any other realm.

−85%

freshwater wildlife, 1970–2020¹⁷

22%

of wetland area lost since 1970¹⁸

2030target

restore degraded ecosystems³⁰

Table 8.4State at baseline
Component	State	Evidence	Status
Species	freshwater populations declining fastest	¹⁷	Reported
Wetlands	more than a fifth lost since 1970	¹⁸	Reported
Flows	dams and withdrawals alter river regimes	¹²	Reported
Services	flood regulation and filtration weakened	⁴⁷	Inferred

Couplings

BIO → WAT regulation and filtration
WAT → BIO flows and quality
FOO → WAT → BIO withdrawals

Evidence to bind in 2027

ecosystem condition of major rivers
restoration progress against 2030 targets

Related editions

GLB Global Systems
GS-02 Energy
GS-03 Food
GS-04 Health
GS-11 Biodiversity
SR-07 Food–water–energy

8.5Water extremes and cities

Floods are among the costliest perils, and droughts strain fast-growing cities. Urban water systems sit where extremes and demand meet.

166US$ bn

flood, storm and fire losses, 2025⁷

2018analogue

Cape Town supply crisis

108countries

with multi-hazard early warning, 2024³³

Table 8.5State at baseline
Component	State	Evidence	Status
Floods	among the costliest and most frequent perils	⁷²⁴	Reported
Urban drought	supply crises in large cities	²	Reported
Early warning	flood warning demonstrated in real events	³³	Reported
Protection gap	flood losses often uninsured	⁷	Inferred

Couplings

CLI → WAT → cities
WAT → FIN uninsured flood losses
WAT → HLT after floods

Evidence to bind in 2027

flood loss and cover by region
urban drought preparedness

Related editions

GLB Global Systems
GS-02 Energy
GS-03 Food
GS-04 Health
GS-11 Biodiversity
SR-07 Food–water–energy

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

14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2016.back
13International Energy Agency (ed.), Energy and AI. World Energy Outlook Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2025.back
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
2UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace. UNESCO, Paris, 2024.back
4UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible. UNESCO, Paris, 2022.back
16FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (eds.), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025. FAO, Rome, 2025.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
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
12R. Caretta, A. Mukherji et al., “Water,” in H.-O. Pörtner et al. (eds.), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, pp. 551–712. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022.back
23A. Y. Hoekstra and M. M. Mekonnen, “The water footprint of humanity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, pp. 3232–3237, 2012.back
41F. Gaupp, J. Hall, S. Hochrainer-Stigler and S. Dadson, “Changing risks of simultaneous global breadbasket failure,” Nature Climate Change, vol. 10, pp. 54–57, 2020.back
38WHO (ed.), Burden of Disease Attributable to Unsafe Drinking-water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2019 Update. WHO, Geneva, 2023.back
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
17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
18Ramsar Convention Secretariat (ed.), Global Wetland Outlook 2025. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, 2025.back
30Convention on Biological Diversity (ed.), Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Decision 15/4. CBD Secretariat, Montreal, 2022.back
47IFRS Foundation (ed.), IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures. International Sustainability Standards Board, London, 2023.back
7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
33WMO and UNDRR (eds.), Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2024. WMO and UNDRR, Geneva, 2024.back
24UNDRR (ed.), Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025: Resilience Pays. UNDRR, Geneva, 2025.back

Global Water 2026
Annex A

Methodology

How the edition was made: methods, the model card, the evidence cut and its age, the acceptance record and the glossary.

9 min read0 figures12 tables6 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

A.1Methods

The global baseline uses published values and four simple derivations. Each is shown in full so that any reader can reproduce it.

Table A.1Methods
No.	Derivation	Calculation	Result
(1)	Share of 2025 disaster losses from floods, storms and wildfires	166 ÷ 224	≈ 74%
(2)	People lacking at least one WASH service (upper bound)	not additive, overlapping groups	reported separately
(3)	Freshwater against all-wildlife decline	85 − 73	12 points steeper
(4)	Growth in water use over 40 years at about 1% a year	1.01⁴⁰	≈ 1.5×

Table A.2Coupling strength scale (matrix and model card)
Strength	Definition
STRONG	a disruption in the source system has historically changed the target system’s service or output within one season, in more than one region
MODERATE	an effect is documented but buffered or slower
WEAK	an effect is plausible but not documented at global scale

Table A.3Status grammar
Label	Rule
Reported	value as issued by its source, with year
Inferred	reasoned from cited evidence; never a measurement
Estimated	Nexus analytical value with stated method
Scenario	conditional on stated assumptions
Expert input	structured editorial judgement awaiting evidence

A.2Model card, Water Sector Model v0

Model ID: MDL-GS01-WATER · v0.1
Purpose: represent the global water system and its couplings to energy, food, health and biodiversity
Family: graph-based system of systems
Inputs: the cited sources of this edition; no proprietary data
Method: expert-specified coupling strengths (STRONG · MODERATE · WEAK) from assessments and analogue events
Validation: none yet, first validation against federation evidence in 2027
Uncertainty: qualitative; strengths are hypotheses, not measurements
Domain of validity: global scale; not for basin, country or asset-level use
Reproducibility: strength table and sources published in this edition

20couplings

typed in v0

11strong

documented within one season

5moderate

documented, buffered

4weak

plausible, undocumented

A.3The baseline evidence cut

Every Nexus edition is published from a frozen evidence cut. The global baseline cut is documentary: it pins the exact edition of every source cited. Federation cuts begin with the first national Foundry cuts in 2027.

Cut ID: DC-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-B0
Type: baseline documentary cut
Resolution policy: pinned · as of 30 September 2026
Sources pinned: 48 cited sources, each at the edition and retrieval date in the references
Model runs: none at baseline, analytical values are stated with their method
Digest: computed at freeze and recorded in the publication record
Supersedes: nothing, first cut of the series
Superseded by: the 2027 water annual cut

Lineage

01
source edition
02
pinned citation
03
finding
04
page
05
publication record

Table A.4From the baseline cut to the federation cut
Element	Baseline 2026	2027 global annual
Sources	cited global publications, pinned by edition	national, regional and sector cuts through one graph
Analysis	stated methods and editorial estimates	typed analysis specifications
Models	Water Sector Model v0 specification	model runs with receipts
Findings	twelve baseline findings	findings re-bound to federation evidence
Review	five passes scheduled	five passes on the exact digest

A.4Evidence age and coverage

A 2026 global edition rests on evidence observed in many different years. This page shows each time base, so that no single year label hides older evidence.

Table A.5Evidence age and coverage
Indicator	Observed	Released	Cadence	Next release
Drinking water and sanitation access	2022	Jul 2023	biennial	next JMP update
Severe seasonal water scarcity	multi-year	2016 · 2024	periodic	next UNWWDR
River discharge anomalies	2023	Oct 2024	annual	annual
Glacier mass loss	2023	Oct 2024	annual	annual
Groundwater trends	1980–2022	Jan 2024	periodic	new studies
WASH-attributable deaths	2019	2023	periodic	next WHO update
Freshwater wildlife index	1970–2020	Oct 2024	biennial	2026 edition
Wetland extent	1970–2025	Jul 2025	periodic	next outlook
Flood and storm losses	2025	Jan 2026	annual	Jan 2027
Transboundary arrangements	2023	2024	triennial	2027

Table A.6Coverage by system at baseline
System	Coverage	Thinnest dimension
Access	GOOD	reliability during droughts and floods
Hydrology	GOOD	basin-scale storage
Cryosphere	GOOD	glacier-fed basin flows
Groundwater	PARTIAL	levels and recharge
Water quality	THIN	monitoring in fast-growing cities
Use by sector	PARTIAL	data-centre and mining use
Freshwater nature	GOOD	condition outside monitored sites
Governance	PARTIAL	operational status of arrangements

A.5Evidence cards, two anchor sources

Issued by WHO and UNICEF from household surveys, censuses and administrative data. Biennial, with service ladders from basic to safely managed. Role: binds WAT-001 and the access tiles.

EVD-GS01-001

JMP 2023 drinking water, sanitation and hygiene¹

Issued by the World Meteorological Organization from hydrological observations, models and satellite products. Annual. Role: binds WAT-004 on river discharge and glacier loss.

EVD-GS01-002

State of Global Water Resources 2023⁵

Table A.7Quality dimensions at baseline
Dimension	EVD-GLB-001	EVD-GLB-002
Completeness	gaps in fragile settings; modelled estimates	uneven station coverage; modelled fill
Timeliness	about 18 months after the year	about ten months after the year
Revision	series revised as surveys arrive	revised as observations improve
Method transparency	methods published	methods published
External validation	national statistical review	multiple data products compared

Evidence cards to follow in 2027

UNWWDR 2022⁴, groundwater shares of withdrawals
Living Planet Index¹⁷, freshwater population trends
Global Wetland Outlook¹⁸, wetland extent method
Transboundary cooperation report⁹, arrangement coverage

A.6Publication acceptance record

Editorial self-check at evidence close. Every applicable item carries a disposition; the remaining items are review, approval and deposit.

Table A.8Publication acceptance record
Group	Area	Items	Pass	N/A	Pending
D1	Identity and scope	8	8	0	0
D2	Source and data	12	9	1	2
D3	Analysis and models	12	3	8	1
D4	Findings and claims	9	8	0	1
D5	Figures, tables, maps	10	6	2	2
D6	Editorial and citations	10	8	0	2
D7	Review and approval	13	0	0	13
D8	Artefact and design	12	7	0	5
D9	Registry and release	9	0	0	9

Publication gate

Conditions met: 14 of 23 at evidence close
Blocking problems: none recorded
Open conditions: reviews, approval of the exact digest, deposit, registry pointer

Not applicable at baseline

Model runs: first runs in Q1 2027
Maps: plates in Q2 2027
Waivers: none

A.7Status words

Table A.9The status every value carries
Status	What it means
Observed	Measured directly and published by the source.
Reported	Published statistics of an official or institutional source.
Declared	Stated by the body concerned; not independently measured.
Estimated	A Nexus estimate from cited evidence, with its method in Annex A.
Modelled	Produced by a stated model from cited inputs.
Inferred	Reasoned from cited evidence; not measured.
Forecast	A projection by the cited source.
Simulated	A simulation result under stated assumptions.
Scenario	A conditional statement under stated assumptions; never a prediction.
Expert input	Expert judgement, recorded with its basis.
Candidate	Proposed for a later edition; not yet evidence.
Evidence-quality levels (EQL 1 to 5) grade the source behind a value; they are not a score of the subject.

A.8How the edition is made, released and corrected

Every edition is built from a sealed evidence cut, reviewed under three keys, signed and deposited before any site shows it as published; corrections go to Nexus Standards as change proposals and feed the next cut.

Step	What happens	Source
01 Evidence arrives from the pillars	Foundry seals observations and indicator series, Universe hands over after-action and scenario findings, and contributions are screened at every gateway, including this site’s.
02 The cut is sealed	On the cut date the evidence is pinned under one identifier, so anyone can rebuild the edition from exactly what it was built on.
03 The edition is assembled	The edition is drafted from its template and content pack. Agents may draft; they never publish and never decide.
04 The keys turn	The Global Risks Alliance turns the capital key: its steward checks that no finding reads as advice, a rating or an underwriting decision. No edition moves on until every key has been turned by a named steward.
05 The gate opens	A named approver releases one exact digest of the edition; any change after this point is a new version, never a silent edit.
06 Signed and deposited	The PDF, the web edition and the data bundle are signed together with a manifest and an RO-Crate description, and deposited on Zenodo with a concept and a version DOI.
07 Published on five sites	Only then do the five Reports sites show the edition as published, each reading it through its own lens.
08 Corrections go to Standards	Method and correction findings go to Nexus Standards as change proposals; citations, corrections and new contributions feed the next evidence cut.

A teaching model of the process, not a forecast and not a record of any run; dates and counts on this page come from the programme record. Sources: Reports governance at Global Risks Alliance (2026); Zenodo, repository of record for Reports deposits (2026).

Lifecycle, one state at a time: Draft, Computed, Evidence bound, Reviewed, Approved for release, Published, Corrected, Superseded. This edition is a draft.

A.9Glossary and abbreviations

Table A.10Series terms
Term	Meaning
Baseline Edition	the inaugural annual edition that fixes the reference state for the series
WEFH+B	water, energy, food, health and biodiversity, the national nexus core
Coupling	a typed dependency through which one system transmits to another
Protection gap	the share of losses not covered by insurance
Capability ladder	LISTED → EXISTS → ADEQUATE → TESTED → DEMONSTRATED
EQL	evidence-quality level, 1–5
Evidence cut	a frozen resolution of exact sources and versions
NNC · NLC · NWG	National Nexus Consortium · National Leadership Council · National Working Groups

Table A.11Abbreviations used in this edition
Abbreviation	Expansion
AQUASTAT	FAO global information system on water and agriculture
GloFAS	Global Flood Awareness System
GRACE-FO	Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On satellites
GRDC	Global Runoff Data Centre
HydroSOS	WMO Hydrological Status and Outlook System
JMP	WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme
SDG 6	Sustainable Development Goal 6, clean water and sanitation
SOLAW	The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture
TNFD	Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
UNECE	United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
UNWWDR	United Nations World Water Development Report
WASH	water, sanitation and hygiene
WMO	World Meteorological Organization

A.10Technical annex

Table A.12Technical annex
Item	Annex	Contents	Status
A.1	Indicator definitions	the global indicator set, with units and sources	IN THIS EDITION
A.2	Coupling strengths	the twenty-cell matrix and its rationale	IN THIS EDITION
A.3	Scenario specification	SCN-GS01-MBD-01 assumptions and signposts	IN THIS EDITION
A.4	Capability placements	rung evidence for fifteen functions	IN THIS EDITION
A.5	Model diagnostics	first runs and validation	2027
A.6	Sensitivity analyses	influence of coupling strengths	2027
A.7	Basin notes	basin cards for the major shared basins	WITH REGIONAL EDITIONS
A.8	Review statements	pass-by-pass review record	AT RELEASE

A.1 · indicator definition, safely managed drinking water

Construct: drinking water from an improved source, on premises, available when needed and free from contamination
Unit: share and number of people
Method: JMP service ladder
Source: WHO/UNICEF JMP 2023¹
Uncertainty: modelled where survey data are missing
Known limits: does not measure reliability during drought or flood

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
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024.back
4UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible. UNESCO, Paris, 2022.back
17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
18Ramsar Convention Secretariat (ed.), Global Wetland Outlook 2025. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, 2025.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

Global Water 2026
Annex B

Data appendix

The indicator set with its sources, the source registers, the licences of every kind of material and the formats of the edition.

8 min read0 figures8 tables21 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

B.1The indicator set

Table B.1Global baseline indicator set
Indicator	Value	Unit	Year	State	Source
Without safely managed drinking water	2.2	billion	2022	Reported	¹
Without safely managed sanitation	3.5	billion	2022	Reported	¹
Without basic hygiene	2.0	billion	2022	Reported	¹
Severe scarcity for part of the year	≈50	% of people	recent	Reported	²
Growth in global water use	≈1	% a year	last 40 years	Reported	³
Agriculture share of withdrawals	≈70	%	recent	Reported	²
Energy share of withdrawals	≈10	%	2014	Reported	¹⁴
Groundwater share of domestic use	≈50	%	recent	Reported	⁴
Groundwater share of irrigation	≈25	%	recent	Reported	⁴
Glacier water lost	600+	Gt	2023	Reported	⁵
WASH-attributable deaths	1.4	million	2019	Reported	³⁸
Children in high water scarcity	739	million	2022	Reported	³⁹
Freshwater wildlife change	−85	%	1970–2020	Reported	¹⁷
Wetland area lost	22	%	since 1970	Reported	¹⁸
Countries sharing transboundary waters	153	countries	2023	Reported	⁹
Flood, storm and fire losses	166	US$ billion	2025	Reported	⁷
GDP at stake in some regions	up to 6	% of GDP	by 2050	Estimated	³⁵
Global mean temperature	1.43	°C	2025	Reported	⁶

Indicators, CSV Indicators, JSON

B.2Global source register

The governed source set behind this edition. Each source keeps its authority, coverage, cadence and role; categories describe origin, not truth.

Domains bound by the register

Table B.3Global source register
Source	Category	Coverage	Period	Cadence	Role
JMP 2023¹	UN agencies	global	2000–2022	biennial	access
UNWWDR 2022–2024²³⁴	UN programme	global	varies	annual	use, groundwater
State of Global Water Resources⁵	UN technical body	global	2023	annual	hydrology
SDG 6 synthesis¹⁰	UN-Water	global	2023	periodic	progress
Transboundary cooperation⁹	UN commissions	global	2023	triennial	governance
WASH burden³⁸	UN agency	global	2019	periodic	health
SOLAW 2021¹⁵	UN agency	global	2021	periodic	food
Living Planet Report¹⁷	civil society	global	1970–2020	biennial	nature
Global Wetland Outlook¹⁸	treaty secretariat	global	1970–2025	periodic	nature
NatCatSERVICE⁷	industry	global	2025	annual	losses

B.3Regional reading, water across ten clusters

Map plates follow with the regional Baseline Editions, when boundary sources and public-safe resolutions are bound. This page gives the regional reading in table form, and ranks no region.

Table B.4Regional reading, water across ten clusters
Region	Principal hazards	Systems most exposed	Baseline evidence
North America	drought in the West; floods; ageing networks	agriculture, hydro, cities	Colorado shortage³⁴
South America	drought; glacier loss in the Andes	hydropower, cities, agriculture	glacier studies²¹
Europe	summer drought; floods	hydro, cooling, shipping	2022 drought
Eurasia	drying lakes and rivers; irrigation	agriculture	assessments¹²
Middle East and North Africa	chronic scarcity; groundwater depletion	water, food imports	scarcity studies²²
Africa	access gaps; drought; floods	health, food, livelihoods	JMP¹
South Asia	groundwater depletion; monsoon floods; glacier-fed rivers	food, health	aquifer study²⁰
East Asia	drought and flood extremes	hydro, industry, cities	2022 drought
ASEAN	floods; delta salinisation	food, cities	assessments¹²
Oceania-Pacific	drought; saltwater intrusion on islands	water supply, agriculture	assessments¹²

B.4Basin card, Colorado River

basin
transboundary
reservoir system
irrigation

Systems in view: water, food, energy, cities
Defining events: first-ever shortage declaration for the lower basin in August 2021³⁴; record-low reservoirs in 2022
Couplings: WAT → FOO irrigation; WAT → ENE hydropower; WAT → cities
Capability evidence: shortage rules and conservation agreements exercised in real conditions
Gaps: long-term allocation under lower flows; groundwater use
Agenda items: W-01 · W-02

The basin’s allocations were set in wetter decades. Shortage rules now govern a river that delivers less than it was divided to provide.

WATER

Allocation under lower flows

Large dams lose output as reservoirs fall, coupling drought directly to power supply in a growing region.

ENERGY

Hydropower at low head

Irrigated agriculture is the largest user; cuts to surface water push farms towards groundwater.

FOOD

Irrigation and groundwater

B.5How countries appear in the water edition

Countries enter the water edition through the water chapters of their own national editions, on one card grammar. They are read against peer distributions and thresholds, never ranked.

Table B.5How countries appear in the water edition
Card field	What it shows	Source
WEFH+B state	each core system against peer distribution bands	national edition
Couplings	the national dependency matrix	national edition
Risk objects	the national risk portfolio	national edition
Capability rungs	the national capability ladder	national edition
Evidence age	oldest and newest source dates	national source register

Editions in the 2026 Baseline programme

26national

countries and unions

10regional

clusters

16global

flagship and sector

14strategic

systems reports

20frontier

technology reports

How to read a country card

Each system is shown against the distribution of its peers, with thresholds where they exist
Couplings and risk objects come from the country’s own national edition
Capability rungs record evidence, not a judgement of institutions
Evidence age is printed, so older national data are visible as such

Table B.6National Baseline Editions in the 2026 programme
Wave	Countries and unions	State
W0	Canada	ISSUED
W1	United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, European Union, Switzerland	PLANNED
W2	Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Türkiye, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, African Union, India, China, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia	PLANNED

B.6Licences

Table B.7Licences of each kind of material
Material	Licence
Text	CC BY 4.0
Data	on the licence of each source; Nexus tables CC BY 4.0
Figures	Nexus figures CC BY 4.0; third-party as credited
Maps	boundary source and licence printed on each plate
Metadata	CC0 1.0, as Zenodo publishes it
Third-party data, figures and text	The source’s own licence, credited where it is used; never relicensed
Nexus-authored text, tables and figures: CC BY 4.0 (SPDX CC-BY-4.0). Map plates print their boundary source and licence.

B.7Formats and provenance

Table B.8This edition in every format
Format	Kind	State	What it is	Identifier
Web edition	HTML	On this site	Draft in stewardship review; every value resolves to its source.	NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
Print edition	PDF	At release	A4 portrait · screen, print and archival PDF, signed with the web edition at release.	NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
Indicator data	CSV · JSON	On this site	18 indicators with unit, year, status and source; the machine-readable copy ships with the evidence bundle at release.	NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE data release v1
Figures	SVG · PNG	On this site	4 on the web edition: headline figure, figure 1.3, coupling instrument, capability ladder.	FIG-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-*
Slides	PDF	Not recorded	No slide deck is recorded for this edition.
Evidence brief	HTML · PDF	Not recorded	No evidence brief is recorded for this edition.
Dataset with DOI	DataCite	At release	Concept and version DOI are minted at deposit; none is recorded yet.

Provenance

Edition pack: The edition’s content pack (JSON), from which the print and web editions are built
Evidence cut: DC-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-B0, closed 30 September 2026
Reproducibility: sourced values cited; analytical values reproducible from stated parameters
Self-check: 14 of 23 at evidence close; a fail on any item blocks release
Review: five passes scheduled before release
Publisher of record: GCRI for the Nexus Consortium
Corrections: Registry correction pathway; upheld corrections are published as notices with a new version

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
3UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2023: Partnerships and Cooperation for Water. UNESCO, Paris, 2023.back
14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 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
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 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
17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
18Ramsar Convention Secretariat (ed.), Global Wetland Outlook 2025. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, 2025.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
7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
35World Bank (ed.), High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy. World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016.back
6WMO (ed.), State of the Global Climate 2025, WMO-No. 1391. WMO, Geneva, March 2026.back
10UN-Water (ed.), Blueprint for Acceleration: Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2023. United Nations, Geneva, 2023.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
34U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (ed.), “Reclamation announces 2022 operating conditions for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.” News release, Washington, DC, August 2021.back
21R. Hugonnet, R. McNabb, E. Berthier et al., “Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century,” Nature, vol. 592, pp. 726–731, 2021.back
12R. Caretta, A. Mukherji et al., “Water,” in H.-O. Pörtner et al. (eds.), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, pp. 551–712. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022.back
22M. M. Mekonnen and A. Y. Hoekstra, “Four billion people facing severe water scarcity,” Science Advances, vol. 2, e1500323, 2016.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

Global Water 2026
Annex C

References and record

Every source the edition rests on, the publication record, the corrections log and the open record.

11 min read0 figures1 table0 notesNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

C.147 sources

NR-CIT-1, editor first. A DOI is linked where the source has one; Nexus records carry a UNI once the catalogue allocates it (NS-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. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
2UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace. UNESCO, Paris, 2024. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
3UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2023: Partnerships and Cooperation for Water. UNESCO, Paris, 2023. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 6
4UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (ed.), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible. UNESCO, Paris, 2022. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 6, chapter 8
5WMO (ed.), State of Global Water Resources 2023. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 2024. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8
6WMO (ed.), State of the Global Climate 2025, WMO-No. 1391. WMO, Geneva, March 2026.
7Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
8Global Commission on the Economics of Water (ed.), The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good. GCEW, Paris, 2024. Cited in chapter 6
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. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6
10UN-Water (ed.), Blueprint for Acceleration: Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2023. United Nations, Geneva, 2023. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 4, chapter 6
11H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.), Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. IPCC, Geneva, 2023. Cited in chapter 6
12R. Caretta, A. Mukherji et al., “Water,” in H.-O. Pörtner et al. (eds.), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, pp. 551–712. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022. Cited in chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
13International Energy Agency (ed.), Energy and AI. World Energy Outlook Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2025. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8
14International Energy Agency (ed.), Water–Energy Nexus. World Energy Outlook 2016 Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2016. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
15FAO (ed.), The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture 2021: Systems at Breaking Point. FAO, Rome, 2021. Cited in the summary, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
16FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (eds.), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025. FAO, Rome, 2025. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
17WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
18Ramsar Convention Secretariat (ed.), Global Wetland Outlook 2025. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, 2025. Cited in the summary, chapter 2, chapter 6, chapter 8
19M. Rodell, J. S. Famiglietti, D. N. Wiese et al., “Emerging trends in global freshwater availability,” Nature, vol. 557, pp. 651–659, 2018. Cited in chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6
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. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8
21R. Hugonnet, R. McNabb, E. Berthier et al., “Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century,” Nature, vol. 592, pp. 726–731, 2021. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 4, chapter 6
22M. M. Mekonnen and A. Y. Hoekstra, “Four billion people facing severe water scarcity,” Science Advances, vol. 2, e1500323, 2016. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 6
23A. Y. Hoekstra and M. M. Mekonnen, “The water footprint of humanity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, pp. 3232–3237, 2012. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
24UNDRR (ed.), Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025: Resilience Pays. UNDRR, Geneva, 2025. Cited in chapter 8
25UNDRR (ed.), Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. UNDRR, Geneva, 2015. Cited in chapter 6
26United Nations General Assembly (ed.), The human right to water and sanitation, resolution 64/292. United Nations, New York, 28 July 2010. Cited in chapter 6
27United Nations (ed.), Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses. United Nations, New York, 1997. Cited in chapter 6
28UNECE (ed.), Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes. UNECE, Helsinki, 1992. Cited in chapter 6
29United Nations General Assembly (ed.), Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, resolution 70/1. United Nations, New York, 2015. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 6
30Convention on Biological Diversity (ed.), Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Decision 15/4. CBD Secretariat, Montreal, 2022. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
31UNFCCC (ed.), Paris Agreement. United Nations, Paris, 2015.
32Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (ed.), Recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. TNFD, London, 2023. Cited in chapter 6
33WMO and UNDRR (eds.), Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2024. WMO and UNDRR, Geneva, 2024. Cited in chapter 4, chapter 8
34U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (ed.), “Reclamation announces 2022 operating conditions for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.” News release, Washington, DC, August 2021.
35World Bank (ed.), High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy. World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 6
36OECD (ed.), Financing a Water Secure Future. OECD Publishing, Paris, 2022. Cited in chapter 4, chapter 6
37WHO (ed.), Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality, 4th ed. incorporating the first and second addenda. WHO, Geneva, 2022. Cited in chapter 6
38WHO (ed.), Burden of Disease Attributable to Unsafe Drinking-water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2019 Update. WHO, Geneva, 2023. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
39UNICEF (ed.), The Climate-Changed Child: A Children’s Climate Risk Index Supplement. UNICEF, New York, 2023. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 6
40J. Zscheischler, S. Westra, B. J. J. M. van den Hurk et al., “Future climate risk from compound events,” Nature Climate Change, vol. 8, pp. 469–477, 2018. Cited in chapter 6
41F. Gaupp, J. Hall, S. Hochrainer-Stigler and S. Dadson, “Changing risks of simultaneous global breadbasket failure,” Nature Climate Change, vol. 10, pp. 54–57, 2020. Cited in chapter 8
42United Nations (ed.), “2026 United Nations Water Conference.” sdgs.un.org, retrieved 2026-09-30.
43S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Reports, The Foundational Edition, Volumes I and II. Reports series, Edition 2026–2030, V1.0. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 6
44S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Global Systems Risk & Resilience Report 2026, Baseline Edition. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026. NR-GLOBAL-SYSTEMS-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0.
45S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Canada Systems Risk & Resilience Report 2026, Baseline Edition. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026. NR-COUNTRY-CAN-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0.
46P. D. McElwee, P. A. Harrison, T. L. van Huysen et al. (eds.), Thematic Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health. IPBES secretariat, Bonn, 2024. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13850054. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13850054 Cited in chapter 3
47IFRS Foundation (ed.), IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures. International Sustainability Standards Board, London, 2023. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8

C.2Publication record

Publication

Title: Global Water Risk & Resilience Report 2026, Baseline Edition
Series: Reports · Global Sector Series GS-01
Edition: Baseline Edition 2026 · inaugural annual
Version: v1.0.0 · draft for stewardship review
Publication ID: NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
Evidence close: 30 September 2026
Publication date: October 2026
DOI: concept and version DOI at deposit

Publisher

Publisher of record: The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), for the Nexus Consortium
Place: Toronto
Editor: Saeed Valadbaygi, Chief Steward and Managing Editor
Stewards: GCRI · technical truth · GRF · public meaning · GRA · capital meaning
Licence: text CC BY 4.0; data on the terms of each source
Language: English (en-GB) source edition
Correspondence: Registry correction pathway · editorial office

Colophon

Format: A4 portrait · screen, print and archival PDF
Typefaces: Space Grotesk (display) · Geist (text) · IBM Plex Sans Italic (standfirsts) · IBM Plex Mono (data)
Design standard: Reports Foundational Edition, Volume I, Part VII
Accessibility: tagged PDF and HTML targets; text alternatives for every figure
Production: Reports editorial team, GCRI

Release path for this version

Table C.1Release path for this version
Step	What happens	When
Draft	editorial self-check complete at evidence close	October 2026
Steward review	five passes on the exact draft (keys T · M · F · N)	Q4 2026
Approval	publication authority approves the exact digest	before release
Deposit	concept and version DOI minted; registry pointer set	at release
Succession	the 2027 water edition reports changes against this baseline	2027

Current version: v1.0.0 draft, stewardship review
Previous edition: none, first edition of the series
Next edition: NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2027-v1.0.0

Latest version: resolve the concept DOI or the registry record
Correction route: Registry correction pathway
Notice types: erratum · addendum · supersession · withdrawal

C.3Corrections log

0correction notices. No edition has been released yet, so none can be corrected; the log below lists each edition’s current version.

Edition	Version	Date	State	Change	Notice
GS-01	NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0	October 2026	Draft	Baseline Edition 2026, inaugural annual edition,	None

Notice types: erratum, addendum, supersession, withdrawal. A correction is a new version with a published notice; the earlier version stays resolvable, and no edition is ever edited in silence.

C.4Open record

This edition’s open record

Publication ID: NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
Series alias: NR-SEC-GS-01-2026-BL
DOI: Concept and version DOI at deposit, on Zenodo with DataCite metadata
Versions: Each correction is a new version (isNewVersionOf); the concept DOI resolves to the latest
Bundle: RO-Crate 1.2 with CITATION.cff, CodeMeta and PROV-O provenance; a signed manifest
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (SPDX CC-BY-4.0) for original material; metadata CC0 1.0

Credit and identity

ORCID: Your iD in the deposit and the contribution record; DataCite can then add the work to your ORCID record
ROR: Your organisation by its ROR identifier, never by a typed name alone
CRediT: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualisation, Writing, review and editing
Account: None needed to contribute; never a password

Find and follow

Search the open indexes for Global Water; software is cited by its SWHID from Software Heritage, and a quantified scenario run is preregistered on OSF before it is run. Annotation is your choice: Hypothesis opens this page in its own viewer.

Mirrors and harvest

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C.5Where this edition sits among the six pillars

Foundry seals the evidence and Universe tests it; Reports publishes it; Standards takes its corrections and Academy teaches from it.

F03 Sealed observations and indicator series Foundry Sealed observations and indicator series behind a profile (closeout).
F04 After-action and scenario findings for Universe After-action and scenario findings for chapters 10 and 13 (after action review).
F05 National Portfolio movement for chapter Foundry National Portfolio movement for chapter 11 (after action review).
Applied in editions Standards Nexus Standards: applied in editions.
GS-01 edition Reports Global Water 2026, published in every format with its sources, citation and corrections.
F06 Method and correction findings as change Standards Method and correction findings as change proposals (correction).
F12 Q4 synthesis informs the next-year Universe Q4 synthesis informs the next-year mandate (renewal).
Taught in the open Academy Risk Academy: taught in the open.

What Foundry and Universe hand to this edition, and what it hands to Standards, Universe and Academy. From the programme spine; GS-01 is a drafted Baseline Edition, so these handoffs run from its first operational quarter.

Handoff	Between	What crosses, and when
F03	Foundry to Reports	Sealed observations and indicator series behind a profile (closeout).
F04	Universe to Reports	After-action and scenario findings for chapters 10 and 13 (after action review).
F05	Foundry to Reports	National Portfolio movement for chapter 11 (after action review).
Ring	Nexus Standards to Reports	Nexus Standards: applied in editions.
F06	Reports to Nexus Standards	Method and correction findings as change proposals (correction).
F12	Reports to Universe	Q4 synthesis informs the next-year mandate (renewal).
Ring	Reports to Risk Academy	Risk Academy: taught in the open.

S.1Abstract

S.2Key messages

S.3Headline finding

S.4At a glance

S.5What each steward reads in it

Technical Truth

Public Meaning

Capital Meaning

Synthesis

S.6What this edition is, and is not

What this edition is

What it is not

What comes next

Notes

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

In this part

1.2The argument

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

Transmission paths

1.4Reinforcing loops

Notes

2.1Headline finding

Implication

What would move it

2.2Water

2.3Food

2.4Energy

2.5Health

2.6Biodiversity

2.7Climate forcing

2.8Governance

2.9Systemic

Notes

3.1Where each system stood at evidence close

People without safely managed drinking water

Share of global freshwater withdrawals for energy

Share of withdrawals used by agriculture

Deaths attributable to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene

Average decline of freshwater wildlife populations

Driest year for global rivers in 33 years

3.2Domain posture

3.3Sector screens

Notes

4.1Risk objects

Multi-basin drought

Groundwater depletion in irrigated aquifers

Riverine and urban flooding

Loss of glacier-fed summer flows

4.2Capability ladder

Notes

5.1Assumptions

5.2The cascade, step by step

5.3The scenario as a table of steps

6.1Three lenses

Capital Meaning

Technical Truth

Public Meaning

Synthesis

6.2Global Risks Alliance reading: 2027 water readiness pack

Publication dispositions

6.3GCRI reading: the model card

6.4Global Risks Forum reading: editorial essays

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 01

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 02

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 03

EDITORIAL ESSAY · 04

6.5Nexus Standards reading: standards and regulatory watch

Changed since 2024

To watch in 2027

6.6Risk Academy reading: literature and evidence review, science and assessments

Review protocol

Where the evidence agrees

Where it is unsettled

Notes

7.1Questions for the operational series

7.2Portfolio proposed for the Q1 2027 alignment

7.3The pathway

7.4Universe 2027, evidence pack for the water candidate mission

Mission