☔️ Water series: Future extreme dynamics of water use: Difference between revisions

What we call “water stress” is measured by considering the amount of water used by a given country as a share of the actual renewable water resources that are available in this country (called “internal” water). When this share reaches around 10% of the total resource, the water stress is low; but above 40% it is described as high to extremely high at 80%. As water stress rises, less water is available for wild ecosystems and risks of groundwater depletion increases. If water use exceed 100% of the resource, this means that this country is either extracting beyond the rate at which aquifers can be replenished, or has very high levels of desalinisation<ref>Currently, 1% of the world drinking water comes from desalination, which is just a fraction of “blue water”. But this is growing every year.

source: https://ourworldindata.org/water-use-stress</ref>

===Water markets and agricultural switch===

Even though the market increases competition between different farming activities, they might as well end up in the same side in the long run, when cities would eventually have to buy more water in time of droughts. Megalopoles’ purchasing power will certainly be higher that of the agriculture sector, and same goes for the industrial sector.<ref name="lordsofwater" />

===Privatising municipal tap water===