Six Strategies Could End Global Water Stress by 2050, Scientists Say

Global water stress could be alleviated by the year 2050 if countries work to implement six key strategies ranging from building more reservoirs to controlling population growth, according to research from Canada and the Netherlands.

Water stress is defined as occurring when more than 40 percent of the water from a region’s rivers is unavailable because it is already being used — a situation that currently affects roughly one-third of the global population.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, the scientists propose six steps they believe can help reduce water stress: planting crops that use water and nutrients more efficiently; using more efficient irrigation methods; improving the efficiency of water use in homes, industry, and municipalities; limiting the rate of population growth so global population stays below 8.5 billion by 2050; increasing reservoir water storage capacity; and intensifying water desalination operations by 50-fold.