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Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026

The State of the World’s Water System. The first annual edition of the global water report. It fixes the 2026 reference state of the world’s water system, and the model, voice and positions, against which the 2027 water edition and every national water chapter will be read.

Read the executive summaryDownload PDF · A4 · 801 KB · 98 pagesUS Letter, data and citation filesCite this report
संपादक
Saeed Valadbaygi
डेस्क
GCRI Systems Evidence
अभिलेखित प्रकाशक
GCRI for the Nexus Consortium
साक्ष्य समापन
30 September 2026
स्थिति
Draft in stewardship review; not yet released
रिपोर्टGS-01

वैश्विक क्षेत्रक जोखिम और लचीलापन

Global Water 2026

The State of the World’s Water System

आधार संस्करण 2026NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINEGCRI for the Nexus Consortium
निष्कर्ष12each with its status and source
स्रोत47numbered, editor first
Chapters and annexes11plus the executive summary
संकेतक18in the data appendix, with CSV and JSON

01 · Status

Status and boundaries.

This edition governs nothing and confers no certification. It records where the global evidence stood at the 2026 baseline. Every value resolves to its source or to its stated method; where neither exists, the edition says so instead of filling the gap.

Publication ID
NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
Series alias
NR-SEC-GS-01-2026-BL
Identifier status
Series alias and evidence cut are provisional until the owner confirms them. No UNI is minted.
Family · class
Global Sector Report GS-01 Water · Baseline Edition (inaugural annual)
Lifecycle state
◌ DRAFT, review copy before stewardship review
Publication date
October 2026
साक्ष्य समापन
30 September 2026 · cut DC-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-B0
पुनरुत्पादनीयता
sourced values cited; analytical values reproducible from stated parameters
Access class
PUBLIC-SAFE DERIVATIVE
समीक्षा
five passes scheduled before release (in Annex C)
Designed for
strategic planning · water-risk screening · portfolio discussion · research · basin dialogue · public communication
इसके लिए नहीं
government assessment · official warning · rating · certification · investment advice · underwriting · procurement · operational authorisation
पंजी
record NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE · current-version pointer at release
सुधार
registry correction pathway · history in Annex C
एआई का उपयोग
disclosed in Annex C
Next edition
NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2027-v1.0.0 · 2027 annual
लाइसेंस
text CC BY 4.0 · data on the terms of each source
Desk identifier
NR-GCRI-GS-01-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
Collection
NR-COL-2026-BASELINE

02 · Key messages

What the edition finds.

Five of the questions the edition answers, each with its status. The executive summary has all of them, with their sources.

  1. 2.2 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion safely managed sanitation in 2022.

    Who lacks safe water?रिपोर्ट किया गया

  2. Roughly half of the world’s people face severe scarcity for part of each year.

    How widespread is scarcity?रिपोर्ट किया गया

  3. 2023 was the driest year for rivers in 33 years; glaciers lost more than 600 Gt.

    Is the water cycle changing?रिपोर्ट किया गया

  4. It supplies about half of domestic water, and declines have accelerated in many aquifers.

    What about groundwater?रिपोर्ट किया गया

  5. Agriculture uses about 70% of withdrawals; drought cuts yields and raises prices.

    How does water drive food risk?रिपोर्ट किया गया

All key messages and the headline finding

03 · Contents

Eight chapters and three annexes.

  1. ·

    Executive summary

    The edition on a few pages: the abstract, the key messages, the headline finding and what each steward reads in it.

  2. 1

    Chapter 1. Water is where the systems meet

    Part I describes प्रणालियाँ and their couplings.

  3. 2

    Chapter 2. Key findings

    Twelve findings carry the water baseline.

  4. 3

    Chapter 3. Systems and sectors at baseline

  5. 4

    Chapter 4. Risks and capability

    Four water risk objects open the portfolio.

  6. 5

    Chapter 5. Multi-basin drought under heat

    A conditional statement under stated assumptions, never a prediction.

  7. 6

    Chapter 6. Readings from the other desks

    The water baseline is read through each steward’s lens, then once as a whole.

  8. 7

    Chapter 7. The 2027 agenda

    Eight bounded questions open the 2027 water agenda.

  9. 8

    Chapter 8. Systems in depth

    One section per system: its state at evidence close, its exposures and what the operational series will watch.

  10. A

    Annex A. Methodology

    How the edition was made: methods, the model card, the evidence cut and its age, the acceptance record and the glossary.

  11. B

    Annex B. Data appendix

    The indicator set with its sources, the source registers, the licences of every kind of material and the formats of the edition.

  12. C

    Annex C. References and record

    Every source the edition rests on, the publication record, the corrections log and the open record.

List of figures (4)
  1. S.1People without services, 2022 (billion)
  2. 1.1How far is the world from universal water, sanitation and hygiene? People without services, 2022 (billion)
  3. 1.2Couplings across the six sectors
  4. 2.1People without services, 2022 (billion)
List of tables (43)
  1. 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
  2. 1.2Pairs of systems where both directions are rated strong
  3. 3.1Each domain read in words, not scored
  4. 3.2Sectors: baseline evidence and the exposure to watch
  5. 4.1Capabilities on the ladder of evidence: listed, exists, demonstrated, tested
  6. 6.12027 water readiness pack
  7. 6.2Standards and regulatory watch
  8. 6.3Peer-reviewed science and assessments
  9. 6.4Institutional flagships
  10. 6.5UN statistics and monitoring
  11. 6.6Energy, nature, finance and loss data
  12. 7.1Objects proposed for the first operational quarter
  13. 7.2Universe 2027, evidence pack for the water candidate mission
  14. 7.3Handoffs and routing
  15. 7.4Routing rules by publication class
  16. 7.5Feeds watched from 2027
  17. 7.6Signals at baseline
  18. 8.1State at baseline
  19. 8.2State at baseline
  20. 8.3State at baseline
  21. 8.4State at baseline
  22. 8.5State at baseline
  23. A.1पद्धतियाँ
  24. A.2Coupling strength scale (matrix and model card)
  25. A.3Status grammar
  26. A.4From the baseline cut to the federation cut
  27. A.5Evidence age and coverage
  28. A.6Coverage by system at baseline
  29. A.7Quality dimensions at baseline
  30. A.8Publication acceptance record
  31. A.9The status every value carries
  32. A.10Series terms
  33. A.11Abbreviations used in this edition
  34. A.12Technical annex
  35. B.1Global baseline indicator set
  36. B.2Global baseline indicator set
  37. B.3Global source register
  38. B.4Regional reading, water across ten clusters
  39. B.5How countries appear in the water edition
  40. B.6National Baseline Editions in the 2026 programme
  41. B.7Licences of each kind of material
  42. B.8This edition in every format
  43. C.1Release path for this version

04 · GCRI reading

How GCRI reads this edition.

The evidence supports reading water as the coupling layer of the WEFH+B system. Access remains unfinished, scarcity is seasonal for half of humanity, and the cycle is shifting: drier rivers, faster glacier loss and declining aquifers. Evidence is strongest for access and hydrology, and weakest for groundwater and quality.

WAT-001 · WAT-004 · WAT-005 · SYS-012

Chapter 6, lenses and readings

05 · Publication record

Version, dates and contributors.

The identity of this edition as its title pages record it. A review copy has no DOI; the DOI is issued at deposit.

Publication ID
NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
संस्करण
1.0.0, review copy
Edition date
साक्ष्य समापन
स्थिति
Draft under stewardship review; not yet released
संपादक
Saeed Valadbaygi
अभिलेखित प्रकाशक
वैश्विक जोखिम और नवाचार केंद्र (Global Centre for Risk and Innovation, GCRI)
Licence of the text
CC BY 4.0
DOI
Issued at deposit, on release
Previous edition
none, first edition of the series
Next edition
NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2027-v1.0.0

Contributors

भूमिकायोगदानBy
ConceptualisationSeries architecture and the water sector modelS. Valadbaygi (ed.)
कार्यप्रणालीBaseline method, dependency scoring and status grammarरिपोर्ट editorial team, GCRI
Investigation · data curationSource review of water assessments, UN statistics and the peer-reviewed literatureReports editorial team, GCRI
Writing, original draftAll chapters; AI-assisted drafting, disclosed belowEditor · editorial team
Writing, review and editingFive review passes before releaseSteward reviewers (scheduled)
VisualisationPages, figures and tables in the Nexus design standardReports editorial team, GCRI
पर्यवेक्षणEdition governance, registry record and depositS. Valadbaygi (ed.)

विमोचन से पहले समीक्षा

उत्तीर्णदायराByस्थिति
1Scientific and technicalGCRI · key Tनिर्धारित
2Reproducibility of analytical valuesGCRI · key Tनिर्धारित
3Public meaning and claimsThe Global Risks Forum (GRF) · key Mनिर्धारित
4Finance-readiness boundaryThe Global Risks Alliance (GRA) · key Fनिर्धारित
5Basin and regional context, safeguardsRegional consortia · key Nनिर्धारित

AI assistance was used for drafting, consistency checks and page composition. Every number, citation and status label was checked against its source by the editorial team before freeze. No AI system is recorded as an author or a reviewer, and no AI output is printed as fact without a source.

06 · Downloads

Read it in print, take the data.

Draft, not yet releasedReview copies of a draft in stewardship review. The released edition carries its DOI and replaces them.

  • प्रिंट करें

    • PDF, A4

      The designed print edition, A4: cover, imprint and licence, how to cite, contents with page numbers, every chapter, figure, table and annex.

      PDF98 pages801 KBTagged, with bookmarks

      SHA-256 d642262d64f74b641881a8f07706cdf8dfb1c6a9b59ba2eaa9543f55c90a5bcc

      डाउनलोड करें: PDF, A4

    • PDF, US Letter

      The designed print edition, US Letter: cover, imprint and licence, how to cite, contents with page numbers, every chapter, figure, table and annex.

      PDF104 pages810 KBTagged, with bookmarks

      SHA-256 41da764f80eee19d2979451e476cbba780b97cd60fc71fffc79a6b9b52f87507

      डाउनलोड करें: PDF, US Letter

  • Web edition

  • Data bundle

  • Citation files

Check a file with its SHA-256: shasum -a 256 <file> (macOS, Linux) or Get-FileHash <file> (Windows). Text, tables and figures by Nexus: CC BY 4.0; each source keeps its own licence.

07 · Cite

Cite this report.

This edition is a draft in stewardship review. Cite it as a draft; the DOI and the UNI are issued at deposit, and the citation then names them.
Catalogue keyNR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Standards applied to NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Cite as

S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the World’s Water System. Reports, Baseline Edition 2026. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026. NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE. DOI at deposit.

Applied

NS-1 catalogue identity (a UNI is allocated at deposit and resolves to this record), NS-2 citation and attribution, NS-3b dataset metadata, NS-5 figures and maps, NS-12 software and AI disclosure.

निगरानी

Corrections are new versions with a published notice; the earlier version stays resolvable.

An attestation is evidence, not a certificate. Nexus Standards parts are preparatory working drafts (2026).

APA 7
Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the World’s Water System (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI). https://therisk.global/nexus-reports/editions/gs-01/
Chicago
Valadbaygi, Saeed, ed. Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the World’s Water System. Baseline Edition 2026. Nexus Reports NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE. Draft under review. Toronto: The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), 2026. https://therisk.global/nexus-reports/editions/gs-01/.
BibTeX
@techreport{NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE,
  editor      = {Valadbaygi, Saeed},
  title       = {{Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026}: The State of the World’s Water System},
  institution = {The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)},
  address     = {Toronto},
  year        = {2026},
  type        = {Nexus Reports, Baseline Edition 2026},
  number      = {NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE},
  note        = {Draft under stewardship review; not yet released. DOI assigned at deposit},
  url         = {https://therisk.global/nexus-reports/editions/gs-01/}
}
RIS
TY  - RPRT
ED  - Valadbaygi, Saeed
TI  - Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the World’s Water System
T3  - Nexus Reports
ET  - Baseline Edition 2026
PY  - 2026
PB  - The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
CY  - Toronto
SN  - NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE
UR  - https://therisk.global/nexus-reports/editions/gs-01/
N1  - Draft under stewardship review; not yet released. DOI assigned at deposit.
LA  - en
ER  -
NR-CIT-1 (house style)
S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Global Water Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the World’s Water System. Nexus Reports, Baseline Edition 2026. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026. NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE. DOI at deposit.
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Reports · GCRI

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योगदान देंसुधार लॉग
  • NR-SECTOR-WATER-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE
  • CC BY 4.0
  • Evidence close 30 September 2026

CC BY 4.0 Free to read. Text and figures: CC BY 4.0. Data: CC0 1.0. Authors keep copyright. Published by GCRI Canada.

क्षेत्रक हस्ताक्षर

The sectors behind Global Water.

A reading aid: the sectors the findings run through and how strongly they depend on each other.

कोने चुनें · रेखाओं पर कर्सर ले जाएँ6 / 15 संबंध

हस्ताक्षर

जल और उसके साझेदार

जल खाद्य को सिंचाई (0.8), ऊर्जा को शीतलन जल और जलविद्युत (0.6) और जैव विविधता को पर्यावरणीय प्रवाह (0.6) देता है।

W · E · I · F · H · B

क्षेत्रक
4 6 में से
संबंध
6 15 में से
युग्मन
0.43 कुल का हिस्सा

सक्रिय सबसे मज़बूत संबंध

  • खाद्य → जैव विविधता · भूमि रूपांतरण0.6
  • जल → ऊर्जा · शीतलन जल और जलविद्युत0.6
  • जल → खाद्य · सिंचाई0.8
  • जल → जैव विविधता · पर्यावरणीय प्रवाह0.6
एक विशिष्ट शहर-क्षेत्र के लिए शिक्षण मान, किसी स्थान के माप नहीं। युग्मन कार्यरत संबंधों की कुल शक्ति है, सभी पंद्रह के अनुपात के रूप में।
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