This report examines water requirements to the year 2025 at regional and national levels to assess emerging problems of stress on freshwater resources. The study focuses on Conventional Development Scenarios, which assume mid-range demographic and economic projections, a global convergence in consumption and production practices, gradual technological advance, and no major policy changes. The report finds that such scenarios would bring a continuing deterioration of water conditions in those areas that are already water scarce and an extension of new water stress conditions in major places throughout the world. The report concludes with recommendations for how to envision and achieve a more sustainable path.

Contributors: Peter Gleick, Paul Kirshen, Gil Pontius, and Kenneth Strzepek