Parents teach their children that water is a precious resource that should not be wasted. Over 71% of the Earth is covered in water. Around 3% of this water is freshwater, and less than 1% is safely drinkable. As these children grow up, however, they lose the idea that water is precious. The average household wastes up to 90 gallons of water per day, which translates to 2.46 billion gallons lost each day in the U.S. alone. This is due to leaks, household habits, climate change, and rapid urbanization. Recently, however, a new issue has risen.
Water scarcity has recently developed into water bankruptcy. Kaveh Madani of Springer Nature Link defines water bankruptcy as “a post-crisis failure state in which human–water systems have exceeded their hydrological carrying capacities, and societies have spent beyond their sustainable hydrological budgets for so long that critical water assets are depleted.” This essentially means that humans are using more water than they need, and the once abundant supply of freshwater is draining faster than it can refill. If water management does not change by 2050, over half of the world population will face extreme water shortages. This will lead to droughts, crop failure, economic decline, habitat destruction, and severe health crises such as dehydration and even cholera.
This is not a newly developed problem; uncertainty surrounding water supplies has been an issue for over 100 years. From 1900 to 1940, rapid industrialization led to water contamination from synthetic chemicals. In 1960, 9% of the world’s population was affected by water shortages. In 2005, that number had grown to 35%. In August of 2014, the citizens of Toledo, Ohio, were unable to drink their water due to toxins in Lake Erie. In 2016, a state of emergency was declared in Flint, Michigan, after its water had been contaminated with lead for over two years. In 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally addressed its failing “Lead and Copper” rule and announced revisions to be made by 2024. In 2025, it was projected that in the next two years, water shortages would threaten food security globally with the increased depletion of groundwater. Finally, in January 2026, top UN researchers declared that the world has entered an era of “Water Bankruptcy.” These researchers have warned that drastic changes must be made before 2030, or the world may never recover.
Julia Jacobo of ABC News mentioned that “of the world’s large lakes, 50% have lost water since the early 1990s…A quarter of humanity directly depends on those lakes.” In addition to lakes, 70% of the world’s aquifers are showing long-term decline at an alarming rate. Jacobo also said that “2 billion people worldwide live on sinking ground and 4 billion people face severe water scarcity at least one month every year.” People choose to deny this as a problem because they think it doesn’t directly affect them, but one day in the near future, it undoubtedly will.
One of the most prevalent factors in the water bankruptcy crisis is the use of AI. AI data centers use anywhere from 300,000 to 550,000 gallons of water per day to cool their systems. These data centers are typically built in arid, dry regions and water-scarce areas, causing further strain on already scarce resources. Due to this, groundwater levels have fallen, sinkholes have appeared, and desertification, deforestation, wildfires, sand and dust storms, and animal endangerment have greatly increased. AI also uses a great deal of electricity, utilizing electrical plants that also use water for cooling.
One of the biggest questions people seem to have when it comes to water bankruptcy is along the lines of: “How can we run out of water if it’s a renewable resource?” The answer is simple. 20-30% of water used in AI cooling systems gets contaminated with salt and chemicals, deeming it unusable. The other 70-80% is evaporated, removing it from the local water supply. Even with the water cycle bringing in new water, Kaveh Madani (Springer Nature Link) states that “a return to ‘normal’ is infeasible even with prohibitive economic, social, and environmental costs.”
The biggest mistake that continues to be made when it comes to water bankruptcy is thinking that it can be reversed. Government leaders promising to restore water supplies to their historical levels is unrealistic and dishonest. UN News pointed out that this situation “Calls for a transition from crisis response to bankruptcy management, grounded in honesty about the irreversibility of losses, protection of remaining water resources – and policies that match hydrological reality rather than past norms.” Although hope is not entirely lost, it is time for people to understand that water bankruptcy will not go away on its own. It may take lots of time and sacrifice, but it must be done in order to protect the future of humanity.
Sources:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11269-025-04484-0
https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/01/1166800
https://abcnews.com/International/planet-entered-era-water-bankruptcy-new-report/story?id=129422093
