The climate crisis is also a global water crisis. The new report from the World Meteorological Organization shows that two-thirds of the planet’s river basins will experience water imbalances in 2024. Historic droughts and devastating floods have created a persistent scenario of instability, with direct impacts on food production, energy production and the lives of billions of people.
This table includes Brazil, where the power matrix depends on water and biomes have already lost much of their original coverage. At the heart of the crisis is the Atlantic Forest, home to the rivers that supply the majority of the country’s population and economy.
The Watch Rivers 2025 report showed that more than 75% of points analyzed in the biome retain only regular quality waters – polluted waters that require treatment for human consumption and the development of aquatic life. Serious and terrible cases have multiplied. On the Tietê River, the extent of the pollution zone decreased in 2025, but the number of sections with good quality water also fell: out of 1,000 kilometers, only 34 remain clean. The problem is not only environmental, but also water, energy, economic and food security.
From the North to the South-East, reservoirs at critical levels are compromising the supply of millions of people. The country is still reacting late to the signs: we continue to deforest, with precarious sanitation and no integration between water, climate and land use planning policies.
The UN estimates that 3.6 billion people already suffer from irregular access to water. The crisis threatens more than 50% of global food production and could reduce countries’ GDP by 8% on average by mid-century – 15% in the poorest countries. In Brazil, a study by the National Agency for Water and Basic Sanitation predicts that by 2040, water availability could decrease by up to 40% in the North, Northeast, Center-West and part of the Southeast. It is an equation that combines climate vulnerability and social inequalities.
All this is already increasing the pressure on the rivers a little. In the South, floods have devastated lives and towns; In the Amazon, extreme drought has paralyzed transportation and isolated communities. But it is in the Atlantic Forest, where more than 70% of Brazilians live, that the future of the country’s water security is at stake. Having lost more than 80% of their original cover, its rivers bear witness to this collapse.
Faced with this situation, the integration of sanitation, climate and conservation policies ceases to be a choice and becomes an obligation. It is necessary to review water quality rules, make them more demanding and linked to river recovery, expand the activities of basin committees and invest in nature-based solutions. Every hectare restored is an investment in water and climate resilience.
The response cannot be limited to urgency, such as tariff flags or transposition work. The path is structural: invest in sanitation, clean up degraded rivers, protect and recover forests. After all, water is not just a resource, it is the line between collapse and survival.
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