France: A new report has stated that the world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40 percent by the end of this decade.

According to the report published by the Global Commision on the Economics of Water, governments must put an end to subsidising the extraction and overuse of water through misdirected agricultural subsidies, and industries from mining to manufacturing must overhaul their wasteful practices.

The authors of the report further remarked that countries must start to manage water as a “global commons”, since most countries are highly dependent on their neighbours for water supplies. Overuse, pollution, and the climate crisis threaten water supplies globally.

Ms. Mariana Mazzucato, an economist and professor at University College London who is also the lead author of the report, commented that “we need a much more proactive and ambitious common good approach. We have to put justice and equity at the centre of this. It is not just a technological or financial problem.”

Most countries depend for about half of their water supply on the evaporation of water from neighbouring countries, known as “green” water because it is held in soils and delivered from transpiration in forests and other ecosystems, when plants take up water from the soil and release vapour into the air from their leaves.

The report sets out seven key recommendations, including revising the global governance of water resources, increasing investment in water management through public-private partnerships, pricing water properly, and establishing “just water partnerships” to raise finance for water projects in developing and middle-income countries.