Huge new investments in water infrastructure and radical changes in how global resources are managed are needed to avert "a systemic crisis that is both local and global" with a 40% shortfall in freshwater supply expected by 2030, according to a new report by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.
With more than 2 billion people already lacking safe water infrastructure, last year's unprecedented floods, droughts, cyclones and heat waves around the world are a sign "of things to come," states the report, Turning the Tide, A Call to Collective Action.