Water is often held up as a precious, life-giving element for its essential role in sustaining plants, people, and animals. But the world’s most important natural resource is also a tool, a force that can be harnessed for industry and energy, sanitation, food production, and consumption.
With the world facing a worsening hunger and nutrition and a climate crisis, it is no longer enough to focus on conserving water in one sector or location, only for it to be used for another sector or elsewhere.
The world must now shift toward maximizing the productivity of water across all of its uses – for food, livelihoods, and economies, and for ecological benefits – getting as much as possible from every last drop.
Photo credit: Sanjiv de Silva/IWMI
