Peter Gleick says global water crisis has arrived

Gleick: safe water for billions needs no new technology

In a commentary published Aug. 11 in The Guardian, Peter Gleick wrote that the world’s water crisis has arrived, describing “disturbing news about our water resources” as “now constant and unrelenting.” Gleick, the author of “The Three Ages of Water” (2023) and “When the Well is Dry: How Water Fuels Violence and Shapes Peace” (2026), said the current conditions are “not normal” but the direct consequence of accelerating human-caused climate change on top of decades of neglect and underinvestment in water institutions and infrastructure.

Gleick cited a catalog of recent events to make the case. He wrote that Puerto Rico is suffering a deep water crisis as severe drought has cut water supplies to thousands, that the Rhine and Po rivers in Europe are at record low levels, and that the seven states sharing the Colorado River in the US are fighting over unprecedented shortages while its major reservoirs have shrunk to their lowest levels since they were built.

He wrote that Hungary’s only nuclear power plant is on the verge of shutting down because there isn’t enough water in the Danube River to cool it, and that toxic chemicals have been found in all English water bodies.

Gleick also cited damage and disruption to water infrastructure, writing that desalination plants in the Middle East have been bombed in the ongoing war with Iran, that municipal water systems in the United States are being hacked, and that the worst El Niño in recorded history is unfolding in the Pacific, affecting weather and water around the world. He wrote that violence over water is worsening, with more water-related conflicts than at any time in recorded history, and that communities are mobilizing to block water-hungry datacenters over concerns that their water resources will be drained away.

Gleick argued that the current experience is not a normal consequence of climate variability. He wrote that climate scientists had warned that continued emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and other human activities would alter the planet’s climate, raise temperatures, disrupt weather patterns, worsen extreme events, raise sea levels and accelerate the spread of disease vectors. “Those warnings were ignored, dismissed, downplayed. And now we are reaping what we’ve sown,” he wrote.

The commentary levels criticism at government inaction. Gleick wrote that the Trump administration’s EPA has halted efforts to regulate new water pollutants and weakened regulations put in place by previous administrations, “both Democratic and Republican.” He said the administration has also continued to push for billions of dollars of cuts to federal agencies that coordinate research on water resources and climate, including the National Science Foundation, the US Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

If governments continue to fail to address water and climate crises, Gleick warned, the coming decades will inevitably see worsening water-related violence and conflict and deteriorating public and ecological health.

Gleick wrote that the situation can be improved. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said, noting that in poll after poll, concern for water resources — both quantity and quality — consistently ranks at the top of environmental challenges. “No new technology needs to be invented to provide safe water and sanitation to the billions of people who still lack it,” he wrote, adding that the cost of providing water to all and cleaning up the consequences of unregulated and uncontrolled water pollution is far less than the costs of failing to do so.

He pointed to specific remedies: international agreements and diplomacy over shared watersheds, which he said is the focus of a major Finnish water diplomacy initiative; smart investments in water efficiency technologies and advanced wastewater treatment systems; efficient irrigation systems that allow far more food to be grown with far less water; and the rapid expansion of renewable energy systems and phase-out of fossil fuels, which he described as a “win-win” that slows climate change and reduces the water required to produce energy.

Gleick closed by calling for more public education about water threats and solutions, more bipartisan action by politicians, and more investment by governments, corporations and communities in technologies and policies that “we know work but are failing to pursue with the urgency the growing crises demand.” He wrote that “constant news about worsening water problems must not become the new normal.”