Resources & Scarcity: Water, Energy, Food Risks

A July 2025 Science Advances study using NASA GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite data found unprecedented continental terrestrial water storage loss since 2002, with drying areas expanding by about twice the size of California each year and clustering into four major Northern Hemisphere drying regions. The study reported that groundwater depletion accounts for 68% of water-storage loss in non-glaciated regions and that continental freshwater losses now contribute more to sea-level rise than the ice sheets, underscoring a major long-term shift in Earth’s water balance. The same study concluded that since 2002, 75% of the global population in 101 countries has experienced freshwater losses, indicating broad exposure across North America, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, northern Canada, and northern Russia. NASA’s GRACE-FO materials also note that Earth’s total freshwater dropped abruptly starting in May 2014 and has stayed low since then, consistent with an acceleration in drying around 2014–2015. Recent reporting in 2025 has continued to highlight the severity of the trend, including a review of GRACE satellite studies that describes accelerating terrestrial water storage losses and persistent groundwater depletion. The available evidence supports treating this as a worsening global freshwater-security crisis affecting agriculture, sanitation, food systems, and economic stability.

Gaza remains in a severe humanitarian emergency marked by widespread displacement, damaged health infrastructure, and continuing access constraints despite the October 2025 ceasefire. UN and partner reporting says humanitarian access improved after the ceasefire, but conditions stayed critical: around 1.6 million people were still facing high levels of acute food insecurity in the late-2025/early-2026 IPC analysis, and more than 1.9 million people were reported displaced by UNICEF in October 2025. The IRC likewise says famine conditions remain a deadly reality, with nearly 55,000 children facing acute malnutrition and more than half a million people experiencing catastrophic conditions. Health-system collapse remains one of the most severe components of the crisis. A June 2026 UK government bulletin said at least 94% of Gaza’s hospitals are damaged or destroyed and only about 2,000 hospital beds remain available across the Strip. The same bulletin said that since the ceasefire began on 10 October 2025, Gaza’s health ministry reported 677 Palestinians killed and 1,800 injured, while continued insecurity and destruction have kept needs extremely high. UN reporting also notes that roughly 1.78 million tons of food entered Gaza between October 2025 and 7 June 2026, but this has not eliminated the crisis because access, distribution, and infrastructure constraints continue to limit the population’s ability to benefit fully from aid.

The global water crisis remains a severe, long-running humanitarian and development emergency. The latest WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme update says **2.1 billion people** still lack **safely managed drinking water**, **3.4 billion** lack **safely managed sanitation**, and **1.7 billion** lack **basic hygiene services** as of 2024. UNICEF’s data also shows that in 2022, **2.2 billion** people lacked safely managed drinking-water services, including **1.5 billion** with only basic services and **115 million** still collecting drinking water directly from rivers, lakes, or other surface water sources. The crisis is unevenly distributed and is worst in poorer, fragile, and water-stressed settings. WHO says people in least developed countries are more than twice as likely to lack basic drinking water and sanitation services, and more than three times as likely to lack basic hygiene services; in fragile contexts, safely managed drinking-water coverage is **38 percentage points lower** than in other countries. The World Bank says people with low access to drinking water services are concentrated in **Sub-Saharan Africa**. The United Nations warns that water scarcity affects every continent, and recent UN reporting continues to link the problem to climate change, drought, weak infrastructure, and unequal access to investment.

Iran’s water crisis remained severe and deepened through late 2025 and into 2026, driven by a multi-year drought, falling rainfall, depleted reservoirs, and long-term groundwater overuse. Reporting in late 2025 described Iran’s sixth consecutive year of drought, rainfall as much as 40%–45% below long-term averages, and Tehran’s main water-supply dams falling to around 10%–12% of capacity, with Amir Kabir Dam reported near 8% in November 2025. The crisis is affecting cities, farms, and industrial users at the same time. Recent reporting says officials warned Tehran could face water rationing or even evacuation if rainfall did not improve, while at least 19 dams were reported near depletion or dry in late 2025 and protests followed in December 2025 and January 2026 over worsening living conditions. Analysts also continue to describe Iran as one of the world’s most water-stressed countries, with agriculture consuming the vast majority of water, widespread groundwater depletion, and land subsidence in major basins and urban areas.

Europe’s water scarcity problem has intensified in 2026, with drought and heat lowering river, reservoir, soil, and groundwater levels across multiple regions. Reuters reported on July 23, 2026 that climate change is exacerbating this year’s drought, disrupting shipping, farming, and industry in countries including Romania and Greece, while the Netherlands declared a water shortage and seven Greek islands declared drought emergencies to protect supplies. CNN also reported that the Dutch government announced an official water deficit on July 17, 2026, raising its drought response to Level 2. The crisis is no longer confined to southern Europe. Recent reporting says low water levels on the Rhine and Danube have reached record lows in some areas, affecting shipping, tourism, and energy production across central and eastern Europe, with Hungary and Romania reportedly shutting down nuclear reactors that rely on Danube cooling water. Euronews reported on June 29, 2026 that Cyprus remains the EU’s most extreme case, using 72% of its freshwater resources annually and up to 92% in summer, while Malta uses 33% annually and several Mediterranean countries remain in the EU’s warning zone. The European Environment Agency has previously said water scarcity affects a large share of EU land and population, and that climate change is likely to make shortages more frequent and severe.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s largest electricity access gap, with roughly 560 million people still lacking electricity in 2024 and the region accounting for about 85% to 86% of the global population without power. Recent reporting shows the global total without electricity stood at 655 million in 2024, while progress in Sub-Saharan Africa has slowed because electricity connections are not keeping pace with rapid population growth. The crisis is concentrated in fragile and low-income countries, and it affects both households and economies through frequent outages, load-shedding, and poor supply quality even for connected users. The rural deficit in Sub-Saharan Africa rose from 376 million in 2010 to 447 million in 2024, and the pace of electrification must triple to reach universal access by 2030. The region also includes 18 of the 20 countries with the largest electricity access deficits, with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia among the biggest gaps.

Pacific Island countries continue to face a severe water security crisis driven by drought, saltwater intrusion, contamination, and fragile water infrastructure. UNDP says communities across Pacific Island countries are still grappling with limited access to safe drinking water, and that climate change is intensifying the problem through rising sea levels, prolonged droughts, and extreme weather that threaten freshwater sources and increase groundwater salinity. The Pacific Community (SPC) also reported in February 2024 that Pacific Island countries met to discuss water scarcity, underscoring that water remains scarce in many parts of the region and that rising sea levels are threatening freshwater supplies. The crisis is especially acute in low-lying atoll states such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands, where small freshwater lenses, limited storage, and high exposure to drought and storm surge make even short dry spells disruptive. A World Bank review found that Pacific water systems are also weakened by pollution, overpumping, and high leakage in urban pipe networks, while inadequate sanitation and waste disposal can be a major hazard to water quality. In Papua New Guinea and parts of Fiji and other island states, population growth, urban drift, and ageing infrastructure further strain supply and raise the risk of service interruptions.

The Gobi Desert remains a major desertification hotspot in northern China and southern Mongolia, but the most recent credible sources in the search results do **not** confirm that the expansion is still 3,600 km² per year. Older and secondary sources cite that figure for grassland loss in China, while newer material indicates China’s Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program has slowed or even reversed desert expansion in some areas, with one source stating the Gobi was shrinking by more than 2,000 km² per year in 2022. Another source notes the program has been effective at halting desert expansion and reducing dust-storm impacts, though it does not provide a 2025-2026 pan-regional loss estimate. The crisis still affects agriculture, grazing land, and air quality across northern China and Mongolia, where desertification is driven by overgrazing, soil erosion, water depletion, and climate change. Reported impacts include damage to farmland, dust storms affecting Beijing and other eastern cities, and broader land degradation across parts of Central Asia, but the exact current annual loss of farmland and the size of the affected population are not verified by the recent sources provided.