It provides an update on renewable water availability, which refers to the amount of freshwater that is replenished each year\u00a0in\u00a0rivers and aquifers\u00a0through precipitation.<\/p>\n
Renewable water availability per person\u00a0has\u00a0declined by seven per cent\u00a0over the past decade\u00a0\u2013\u00a0from 5,326 to 5,719 cubic\u00a0metres\u00a0(m3),\u00a0according to\u00a0the\u00a02025 AQUASTAT Water Data Snapshot<\/a>.<\/p>\n Regions such as\u00a0Northern Africa, Southern Asia and Western Asia\u00a0have the lowest freshwater resources per capita, with\u00a0Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates,\u00a0Qatar\u00a0and Yemen\u00a0ranking among top countries with lowest total renewable water.<\/p>\n Increase in\u00a0freshwater\u00a0withdrawal<\/p>\n Several regions have also seen an increase in freshwater withdrawals in recent years, which is adding to the strain on already stressed river basins and aquifers.<\/p>\n \u201cNorthern Africa saw the largest increase, with freshwater withdrawals rising by 16 per cent,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n Most withdrawals globally,\u00a0nearly 70\u00a0per cent, were from surface water sources, while 23 per cent came from groundwater.<\/p>\n Water for agriculture\u00a0<\/p>\n Agriculture\u00a0remains\u00a0the largest water-using sector, accounting for\u00a0some 72\u00a0per\u00a0cent of\u00a0freshwater\u00a0withdrawals\u00a0globally. The industrial and service sectors followed at 15 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.<\/p>\n Sixty-six\u00a0countries\u00a0allocated\u00a0more than 75 per cent of their total freshwater withdrawal to agriculture.<\/p>\n For\u00a0Afghanistan, the Lao People\u2019s Democratic Republic, Mali, Nepal,\u00a0Somalia\u00a0and Sudan\u00a0the\u00a0figure\u00a0was 95 per cent.<\/p>\n Shift in availability and demand<\/p>\n The report also shows how water availability and demand are shifting across regions.<\/p>\n This includes North Africa, where freshwater availability per\u00a0head\u00a0remains\u00a0among the lowest globally, while withdrawals have increased by 16 percent over the past 10 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n In\u00a0Western Asia – which\u00a0for the report includes\u00a0most Middle Eastern countries – rapid demographic growth and agricultural demand are contributing to increased pressure on limited supplies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Irrigation and efficiency<\/p>\n The report\u00a0also highlights wide disparities in irrigation and water-use efficiency\u00a0in cultivated land.<\/p>\n \u201cIn parts of Latin America and\u00a0Asia, irrigation supports a large share of crop production, whereas in\u00a0sub-Saharan Africa irrigated cropland represents only a small fraction of total cultivated land, reflecting persistent gaps in access to water infrastructure,\u201d FAO<\/a> said.<\/p>\n At the national level,\u00a0Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Suriname, and Uzbekistan\u00a0reported the highest irrigation coverage. Over 90 per cent of cultivated land in these countries is equipped with irrigation infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n In contrast, some 35 countries \u2013\u00a0mainly in\u00a0sub-Saharan Africa \u2013\u00a0had less than one per cent of cultivated land under irrigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It provides an update on renewable water availability, which refers to the amount of freshwater that is replenished…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-182123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}