Increasing Water Scarcity

As the impacts of climate change continue to become more pronounced, cities and regions are facing increasing shortages of clean water. Even in countries with adequate water resources, water scarcity is not uncommon and can be linked to factors such as poor infrastructure, climate change, and contamination. In the U.S., an estimated 2.2 million Americans live in homes without running water or basic plumbing. As basic infrastructure for plumbing and water begins to age and fail, tens of millions of Americans lack sufficient and secure sanitation facilities due to the inability to safely treat and dispose of human waste.

Water scarcity, however, spans the globe. According to UNICEF, roughly four billion people worldwide experience at least one month of extreme water scarcity per year, and by 2030 nearly 700 million people could be displaced because of water scarcity. Cape Town’s Day Zero was a harbinger for coming water crises in cities across the globe. Mexico City is increasingly tapping groundwater reserves due to persistently low reservoirs, leading to fears that the city may be sinking. Water rationing in Bogotà, Colombia, is just one recent attempt to deal with increasingly scarce local water supplies. In Port Lincoln, South Australia, overextraction is making groundwater too salty, requiring extensive processing to make the water drinkable for residents, and in coastal Bangladesh 20 million people, especially women, face health threats from salinity in drinking water. Major droughts in the Catalonia region of Spain have pitted residents against tourists in competing for limited water supplies. And globally, one-quarter of all food crops are currently threatened by unreliable or highly stressed water supplies.

Recent attempts to stave off catastrophic water crises in the U.S. have seen some success as communities seek to draw from a wider variety of water sources or limit use of existing water sources. Some of these recent strategies include pipeline construction to link up with faraway rivers, proactively refilling major aquifers during times of sufficient rainfall to hedge against drought, and creating and enforcing stringent new restrictions on groundwater usage to allow natural aquifer and reservoir recovery. Unfortunately, these strategies are far from foolproof, especially those that only address supply-side issues.

As competition for water grows and finding new water sources becomes more difficult, communities may be forced to fully reckon with the challenges of meeting current and future water needs. The challenges for planners are significant, given their roles as key regulatory agents and coordinators across the residential, commercial, and agricultural sectors.