这篇博客文章基于GE和沃顿商学院的演讲，名为“水的经济力量”。了解更多关于活动。

Every inhabited continent, to varying degrees, faces extremely high water stress. That means that in certain areas more than 80 percent of the local water supply is withdrawn by businesses, farmers, residents and other consumers every year. Not all of that water is consumed - it may flow back into a river after it’s used and be available again downstream - but the demand still creates competition where it is needed.

These “stressed” areas are also the ones most vulnerable to episodic droughts. With chronic over-use of water resources, it only takes a string of a few bad rainfall years or poor management decisions to plunge a region into crisis and chaos.

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的确，这就是我们过去几年在世界各地看到的。以下是过去十年中发生的七种极端干旱：

Australia’s one-in-a-thousand-year drought

Australia’s “Millennium” drought began in 1995 and continued country-wide until late 2009. Reservoir levels fell precipitously, as did crop production and industrial water use. A number of cities, including Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, built desalination plants in an effort to partially drought-proof themselves, while其他领域灰水回收项目。在2001年至2012年之间，联邦政府提供了45亿美元为受干旱影响的农民和小型企业提供帮助。

In 2010-11, following quickly on the heels of the drought, Australia experienced its worst flooding in half a century, as an area of Queensland larger than the size of France and Germany combined flooded, affecting 200,000 people and costing至少100亿美元。

西班牙乘船进口水

西班牙东北地区加泰罗尼亚地区的干旱在2008年变得如此严重，以至于巴塞罗那开始从法国进口水。根据西班牙水的大约70％的水用于农业，其中大部分“在过时的灌溉系统中浪费了，渴的口渴作物不适合干旱土地”。独立。其他批评家指出，水价低是危机的罪魁祸首。人们经常说，低水价导致对水效水基础设施的用水量和低投资。

从太空可以看到印度北部的地下水损失

Twin satellites from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) are able to detect changes in the Earth’s gravity field brought about by changes in mass distribution, including changes in groundwater storage. Nowhere on Earth are groundwater declines greater than in northern India; NASA found that large-scale irrigation caused 108 cubic kilometers of groundwater loss in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Delhi between 2002 and 2008. The study’s lead, Matt Rodell,观察到的“该地区已经依赖灌溉来最大程度地提高农业生产力。如果没有采取措施确保可持续的地下水使用情况，那么该地区1.14亿居民的后果可能包括农业产量的崩溃和严重的饮用水短缺。“

In July 2012, roughly half of India’s population – about 670 million people or 10 percent of the world’s population – temporarily lost power following a massive grid failure. Some experts laid the blame on the severe drought affecting northern India. Low rainfall受限制的the amount of power delivered by hydroelectric dams, and farmers used more power than usual to run water pumps to irrigate their crops .

The dark side of China’s boom

中国北部的大部分地区相对干燥，与加利福尼亚州和美国其他地区不同。然而，由于洪水灌溉，它传统上也产生了大量的小麦和其他谷物。加上这种效率低下的系统，使行业，能源和市政当局以及中国的未来飙升可能正在干燥。

政府官员开始采取行动。水现在是中国的公共政策优先事项之一，中央政府最近发起了一项“三条红线”政策，以提高用水效率并限制用水需求。然而，尚不清楚这些政策是否足以克服该国的巨大水挑战。

美索不达米亚噩梦

From 2006 through 2011, Syria受苦它在记录的历史上最严重的干旱和作物衰竭。Grace卫星数据revealed“an alarming rate of decrease in total water storage in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, which [at the time had] the second fastest rate of groundwater storage loss on Earth, after India. ” While many other factors – political, social and religious – have contributed to the Syrian military conflict,专家争辩that “the decrease in water availability, water mismanagement, agricultural failures, and related economic deterioration contributed to population dislocations and the migration of rural communities to nearby cities. These factors further contributed to urban unemployment, economic dislocations, food insecurity for more than a million people, and subsequent social unrest. ”

Southeastern Brazil on the brink

部分巴西东南部，包括圣保罗的城市，里约热内卢和贝洛·高他are struggling在84年内最严重的干旱，有4000万人和美国的“经济心跳”处于危险之中。向这些城市供水的水库处于危险的低水平。它们也受到高度污染，使事情更加复杂。

不幸的是，政客们未能采取果断采取行动来最大程度地减少危机的影响，从而增加了公众的不信任和挫败感。甚至有人谈论出口“水难民”，并引进军队以帮助如果情况变得更糟。

Turning now to California

加利福尼亚州正处于前所未有的干旱中，现在是第四年。州长杰里·布朗（Jerry Brown）在上个月初对国家市政当局用水的强制性限制，此后，一群拥有高级权利的农民今年已经放弃了四分之一的水作为交换for being spared deeper mandatory cuts . The situation is bad – even desperate for some farmers. As I argued in a recent blog, the state needs to improve its water governance in order to protect its economic interests and its citizens.

The Situation Is Poised to Worsen

WRI的渡槽项目即将在2020年，2030年和2040年对全球水压力进行预测，这表明在未来几十年中，全球水景可能会变得更糟。较大的人口和成长的经济体需要更多的水，在某些地方，气候变化可能会减少可用的供水。必威官网是真的吗据大多数气候变化专家称，尽管我们干旱的脆弱性增长，但包括干旱在内的极端天气事件的发生也将增长。必威官网是真的吗

Yet in this knowledge lies power. We know that drought risk is high and growing worldwide. We’re already seeing the impact water scarcity has on citizens, on the environment and on economies. Sustainable water-management plans, clear government monitoring and management policies and wise natural and engineered infrastructure investments could have helped to shore up the dwindling water supply, alleviating impacts on people, planet and economy.

是时候将这些信息付诸实践了。企业，政府和所有水管理人员必须快速，聪明地采取措施，以减少干旱事件的脆弱性。