The Next Ten To Go Dry

Bengaluru, Beijing, Mexico City and Istanbul are some of the cities that are headed towards Day Zero.

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While the world’s most dramatic urban crisis unfolds in Africa, recent studies say at least 200 cities across the world are fast running out of water. An analysis by Down To Earth shows 10 of them are headed towards Day Zero—when the taps will run dry (see map ‘Global sinks’ on p46). This comes as a surprise because cities across the world have grown, thrived and expanded along rich, perennial sources of water, be it lakes, rivers, springs or even seas. So, where did all the water go?

Robert McDonald, lead scientist at the US-based environmental group Nature Conservancy offers an explanation. “The main long-term driver of these shortages is the unprecedented urban growth occurring around the world,” he says. Rightly so. There has been a massive redistribution of populations in recent decades. Urban areas, which account for just 3 per cent of the total landmass, are now home to 54 per cent of the global population today, says a study published in Nature this January. The UN expects this rapid urbanisation will go on at least till the mid of 21st century. By then, urban populations would make up about 66 per cent of the world’s total population. Around 90 percent of this growth is expected to be in developing countries.