‘WATER RISK ATLAS’ IS AN INITIAL SCREENING TOOL: “We’re currently facing a global water crisis. We’re likely to see more ‘Day Zeros’ in the future,” said Betsy Otto, Global Water Director, World Resources Institute (August 2019)
The world runs on water. Yet the world’s water systems face formidable threats. More than a billion people currently live in water-scarce regions, and as many as 3.5 billion could experience water scarcity by 2025. The Water Risk Atlas is a scale of “water stress” — how close a country comes to draining its annual water stores in a typical year. In areas of high or extremely high water stress, said Betsy Otto, “if you then hit a drought … you’re really in trouble, because you’re already using most of what you have.”