Global Warning

 Where Does Our Freshwater Go?

Making the invisible global water balance visible

We are told to use less water.

Farmers face abstraction restrictions. Industries are increasingly confronted with water scarcity. Governments warn that freshwater is becoming one of the world's most vulnerable resources.

Yet at the same time, enormous quantities of freshwater continue to flow into the sea.

That is not necessarily mismanagement.

Rivers naturally discharge into oceans. Water authorities must prevent flooding. Freshwater is deliberately used to combat saltwater intrusion. Reservoirs cannot simply be filled indefinitely without creating other risks.

But this creates a question that deserves far more attention:

How much freshwater do we have — and where does it actually go?

At present, that answer is remarkably difficult for the public to see — in Europe and across the world.

Water is abstracted from rivers and aquifers.

Water is stored.

Water is consumed.

Water is returned after use.

Water is transferred between regions.

Water is deliberately discharged.

Water is used to repel saltwater.

And ultimately enormous quantities flow to the sea.

Meanwhile, glaciers are retreating, groundwater reserves are declining, droughts are intensifying, floods are becoming more destructive, and billions of people face seasonal or chronic water stress. From the Sahel to the Mediterranean, from the Indo-Gangetic Plain to the American West, from Australia to rapidly growing cities across Latin America and Asia, freshwater security is becoming a global question of food, health, energy, migration and stability.

Each individual decision may have a perfectly legitimate explanation.

But where is the complete picture?

The Problem Is Not Water. It Is the Water Balance.

Scarcity cannot be governed intelligently by looking at only one side of the equation.

Before asking citizens, agriculture or industry to consume less, governments should be capable of showing what happens to the resource as a whole — within each basin and across the global systems that connect water, food, energy, trade and climate.

How much enters a water system?

How much is abstracted?

By whom?

For what purpose?

How much is consumed?

How much is returned?

How much is stored?

How much is deliberately discharged?

How much water is effectively exported through food, energy, manufactured goods and digital infrastructure?

And how do those decisions change when drought develops?

Without that information, the public sees restrictions at one end of the system and enormous volumes of freshwater flowing towards the sea at the other.

That inevitably creates questions.

The answer should not be less questioning.

It should be better information.

Because water does not stop at administrative borders. A river basin may cross several countries. A drought in one region can reshape global food prices. Groundwater depletion can undermine entire economies. Water-intensive production can move scarcity from one continent to another while consumption remains invisible to the final user.

JAS Aware Solution: The Public Freshwater Balance

The world already collects enormous quantities of water data through satellites, monitoring stations, utilities, research institutions and public authorities.

The next step should be to make that data understandable, comparable and publicly accountable.

I propose a Public Freshwater Balance: a transparent, basin-based digital system showing the principal movements and allocations of freshwater.

Not another annual report containing national averages.

A comprehensible water account.

For every major river basin and groundwater body, it should show:

WATER IN

precipitation • river inflow • snowmelt • groundwater recharge • transfers • desalination • reclaimed water

WATER HELD

reservoirs • lakes • groundwater • glaciers and snowpack • wetlands • strategic freshwater buffers

WATER OUT

natural river discharge • controlled discharge to sea • evaporation • inter-basin transfers • ecological flows

WATER ABSTRACTED

drinking water • agriculture • energy • industry • mining • digital infrastructure • households • other major users

WATER RETURNED

including where, when and in what condition it returns to the system.

It should also reveal the water embedded in trade: the freshwater used to produce exported food, textiles, energy, minerals and manufactured goods.

And during periods of scarcity:

WHO GETS PRIORITY — AND WHY?

The system should use common definitions, near-real-time updates where possible, independent verification and clear uncertainty ranges. It should connect local basin accounts to national, regional and global water risks without pretending that every litre can be measured with perfect precision.

From Water Restrictions to Water Accountability

This would not prevent drought.

Nor would it mean that every litre reaching the sea could or should have been retained.

It would do something more fundamental.

It would make water governance visible.

Authorities could explain why water had to be discharged.

Citizens could understand why restrictions were necessary.

Businesses could anticipate scarcity.

Researchers could identify inefficiencies.

Communities could see whether vulnerable people and ecosystems were being protected.

And policymakers could see where additional storage, reuse, retention or infrastructure might genuinely improve resilience — and where such interventions would merely shift the problem downstream or across borders.

The European Commission already argues that water efficiency should come first: reducing demand and over-abstraction, followed by efficiency and reuse, before increasing supply.

The same principle must become global.

Transparency should come even earlier.

Because we cannot sustainably manage what society cannot see.

And we cannot treat freshwater as a local inconvenience when its depletion is linked to global food systems, climate disruption, public health, economic security and geopolitical stability.

Before restricting freshwater, account for it.

That is not an accusation.

It is good governance.

And it may become one of the foundations of a genuinely water-resilient Europe - and a safer, more resilient world.