Mapping Global Water Stress

Water scarcity is likely to be one of the great problems facing the planet this century. Various risk factors contribute to the scarcity of clean water. A new mapping tool from the World Resources Institute visualizes how those risk factors can combine to create large problems, or how conditions can be improved to reduce the potential for water shortages between now and 2095.

The Water Risk Atlas shows how variable environmental conditions, human activities and regulatory environments affect the stability of water sources all over the world. One-year and three-year socioeconomic droughts can be displayed, as can baseline water stress, seasonal variability, inter-annual variability, and flood frequency. The tool also shows projected water stress levels for the years 2025, 2050 and 2095, under three different climate change scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.