Water: The Most Undervalued Resource on Earth

Abstract

In developed countries, due to common access to drinkingwater, the value of water is often underestimated. On the contrary,some nations suffer from water scarcity and struggle toobtain fresh water every day. For decades, due to increasingenvironmental impacts, the quality of water resources hasbeen constantly deteriorating. Moreover, only 3% of globalwater resources are considered as freshwater, of which 23%are surface and ground waters, which in total means thatonly 0.3% is available for consumption (U.S. Geological Survey,2019). Water use differs between regions of the world,but in general, it is driven by agriculture, manufacturing, energyindustry, mining, services and public supply. In developedcountries, households use less than 5% of water for drinkingor cooking while in some developing countries water usefor consumption needs reaches 100%. It has been estimatedthat by 2025 approx. 2.8 billion people will suffer from waterscarcity due to high water stress and lack of sustainability inwater use and by 2050 half of the global population will live inwater-stress regions (United Nations, 2015).