Title: The Global Water Crisis
Subtitle: Economic Drivers, Institutional Failures, and Policy Responses in a Changing Climate
Subject Classification:  Sustainability, Climate Change  
BIC Classification: RG, RN, RB
BISAC Classification:
Binding: Hardback, eBook
Planned publication date: Apr 2026
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83711-871-7
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83711-872-4

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Description

Although Earth is often portrayed as a “blue planet,” this image of abundance conceals a persistent global water crisis driven less by absolute physical scarcity than by deep structural imbalances. At the global scale, renewable freshwater—averaging about 5,375 m3 per capita annually—appears theoretically sufficient. Yet rising demand, intensifying climate variability, and persistently inadequate economic incentives have amplified spatial and temporal disparities rooted in natural endowments and enduring hydrological constraints. Weak governance, chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, and distorted pricing systems have progressively transformed manageable conditions into systemic and widespread water stress.
Historically, societies developed sophisticated hydraulic institutions to cope with climatic variability, maintaining fragile but effective equilibria. This balance has been disrupted by modern pressures. Since the early twentieth century, global population has expanded elevenfold and water demand more than fortyfold, driven by industrialization, urbanization, and intensified irrigated agriculture. Structural economic forces—including rising demand, supply-driven engineering paradigms, harmful subsidies, ecosystem degradation, climate change, and cultural norms treating water as a free public good—have deepened the crisis.
Addressing these challenges requires a shift toward demand-side management, efficient allocation, and sustainability-oriented governance. This transition depends on integrating economic reasoning—through pricing reforms, incentive-compatible mechanisms, and stronger institutions—with hydrological science and engineering, reframing water scarcity as an allocative and institutional challenge rather than a purely physical constraint.

Biography

Author(s):  Mohamed Salah Matoussi is a Tunisian economist and Professor Emeritus at Université de Tunis El Manar, specializing in water economics and applied microeconomic analysis. A former research leader and consultant, he has produced influential scholarship on sustainable water management.

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