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Law, politics, and crisis

Main articles: Water law, Water right, and Water crisis

An estimate of the proportion of people in developing countries with access to potable water 1970–2000

Water politics is politics affected by water and water resources. For this reason, water is a strategic resource in the globe and an important element in many political conflicts. It causes health impacts and damage to biodiversity.

Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%.

1.6 billion people have gained access to a safe water source since 1990. The proportion of people in developing countries with access to safe water is calculated to have improved from 30% in 1970 to 71% in 1990, 79% in 2000 and 84% in 2004.

A 2006 United Nations report stated that "there is enough water for everyone", but that access to it is hampered by mismanagement and corruption. In addition, global initiatives to improve the efficiency of aid delivery, such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, have not been taken up by water sector donors as effectively as they have in education and health, potentially leaving multiple donors working on overlapping projects and recipient governments without empowerment to act.

The authors of the 2007 Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture cited poor governance as one reason for some forms of water scarcity. Water governance is the set of formal and informal processes through which decisions related to water management are made. Good water governance is primarily about knowing what processes work best in a particular physical and socioeconomic context. Mistakes have sometimes been made by trying to apply 'blueprints' that work in the developed world to developing world locations and contexts. The Mekong river is one example; a review by the International Water Management Institute of policies in six countries that rely on the Mekong river for water found that thorough and transparent cost-benefit analyses and environmental impact assessments were rarely undertaken. They also discovered that Cambodia's draft water law was much more complex than it needed to be.

The UN World Water Development Report (WWDR, 2003) from the World Water Assessment Program indicates that, in the next 20 years, the quantity of water available to everyone is predicted to decrease by 30%. 40% of the world's inhabitants currently have insufficient fresh water for minimal hygiene. More than 2.2 million people died in 2000 from waterborne diseases (related to the consumption of contaminated water) or drought. In 2019 the sources for 2 billion people globally was found to be contaminated with fecal matter, and that drinking from contaminated water supplies is responsible for 485,000 deaths every year.

Organizations concerned with water protection include the International Water Association (IWA), WaterAid, Water 1st, and the American Water Resources Association. The International Water Management Institute undertakes projects with the aim of using effective water management to reduce poverty. Water related conventions are United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and Ramsar Convention. World Day for Water takes place on 22 March and World Oceans Day on 8 June.

Flint Water Crisis

In January, 2016 the US Federal Government declared a state of emergency in relation to the state of the water supply in Flint, Michigan.  The degradation of the drinking water was due to the city switching from using the Great Lakes as a source for fresh water to the Flint River in April, 2014 without treating the pipes being used with corrosion control in an effort to save money.  The result of this was that an unsafe level of lead leached into the drinking water for the city.  Due to a bacterial infection the City of Flint issued a boil water advisory for August and September of 2014.  The following month in October of 2014 the General Motors Company switched the water source for their assembly plant in Flint from the Flint river Water Supply back to the water supplied by the water supplied by the Detroit Water and Sewerage department due to the river water causing corrosion on engine parts.  In October of 2015, the City of Flint re-connected the city's water supply back to the Lake Huron source provided by Detroit Water.  Currently Flint is working towards a lead free initiative that's striving to make the city lead free by 2022, by identifying service gaps and adopting prevention focused strategies.  In addition to this program, the city is replacing the older water infrastructure (LSL pipes) and replacing the corroded lead based fixtures.

<Global Water Policy>

<Water rights and corporations (bottling companies)>

<Water scarcity and climate change>

In Volume 66 of Sustainable Cities and Societies, B. Leveque et al. reported that climate change will have an impact on the quality and quantity of surface water that can be utilized as drinking water. The study was done in Northern Quebec and focuses on the impact of melting permafrost and the release of Green House Gasses. It is also noted in this study that the effects are not limited to the summer months since log jams caused by frazil ice can cause drinking water intakes to become obstructed.

In December of 2020 California Water Futures started being traded on the stock market under the NQH2O ticker symbol.