Water covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. Yet 97% of it is saline, and much of what remains is locked away in ice caps and glaciers. If all the planet’s water fitted into a single bucket, the fresh water available for human use would barely fill a tablespoon.
Access to that fresh water depends not just on geography, but on pipes, treatment plants, regulation and political choices. When those systems falter, scarcity can hit quickly. In the UK, warnings about resilience in a privatised water system have been issued for decades, but action has lagged. This year, the chickens are coming home to roost. Several of England’s water companies are on the verge of collapse, burdened by huge debt mountains.
The government has baulked at nationalisation but may have to step in to keep the taps running. Zoom out, and the problems are even starker. Around 1.4 billion people live in areas of high-water vulnerability.
In Iran, prolonged drought pushed cities towards what officials call “day zero”, when water systems cease to function. The subsequent unrest has been met with violent repression. In India, millions rely on dwindling groundwater levels for drinking and irrigation. From the Horn of Africa to Central America, failing water systems are driving hunger, displacement and migration.
In this issue, we ask what’s going wrong. From sewage-choked rivers to water-guzzling AI data centres, we investigate failures, question who is accountable, and ask what meaningful reform might look like. But if it all sounds a bit Mad Max, fear not. There are solutions. We take a look at a few – including activists cleaning up polluted lakes and communities building resilience. Dive in.
What else is in this week’s Big Issue?
A close – and smelly – look at water pollution
Big Issue goes wading in the River Roding, one of London’s most polluted rivers. The water scandal has been widely covered, but the data local river activists are gathering reveals a problem beyond public awareness: at least a dozen unknown illegal outfalls on the Roding and its tributaries that no authority has logged, monitored or acted upon. We’re on the scent.
