Sustainably managing the world’s freshwater – or, not exhausting today what we’ll need tomorrow - IEEE SusTech 2026

This talk focuses on global water bankruptcy due to climate variability and profligate water demands. Solutions may include desalination, wastewater reuse, rainwater harvesting, and conservation, but there are environmental and political challenges.

According to experts, global water bankruptcy is impending, caused by withdrawing more water than climate and hydrology can either provide or replenish.

We discuss how climate variability and profligate water demands got us to this point in both our region and across the globe; whether desalination, wastewater reuse, rainwater harvesting, and conservation are sustainable means of alleviating water bankruptcy; the environmental and political challenges entailed in adopting these and other innovations; and how these challenges can be overcome through collaboration with affected publics.

We also discuss how water bankruptcy has become a special challenge in poorer, developing countries that share increasingly over-stressed rivers and groundwater basins. Alleviating transboundary conflicts will require proactive efforts to build trust and confidence in water-sharing agreements. Sharing water data, verifying water needs, ratifying equitable allocation formulae, and adopting appropriate water innovations will all be required to resolve disputes. In sum, to reverse water bankruptcy we must better engage water users, adopt multiple strategies to satisfy water demands, and pay particular attention to the needs of under-represented groups.