Leading up to the first United Nations water summit since 1977(Opens in a new tab), a newly released U.N. World Water Development Report(Opens in a new tab) warns that humanity is walking a dangerous path toward losing its most precious resource due to "vampiric overconsumption and underdevelopment." The report states that the biggest causes for the water crisis are climate change and the increased industrial and urban demands, as well as the unsustainable management of the ever-expanding agriculture sector, which uses a staggering 70 percent of the world’s freshwater supply.

(Opens in a new tab)The worrying report was published just days after the latest Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) report(Opens in a new tab) which warned that humanity is nearing its last chances to defuse "the ticking time bomb" of increasingly severe climate change, as U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it.

But it’s not all gloom. Despite the stark warning, the Water Development Report(Opens in a new tab) actually focuses on solutions. A global water crisis is only imminent if not addressed in time, and the good news is we already have a lot of the projects and initiatives we need to tackle the problem.

It’s important to keep our eyes on world leaders as they’re the most responsible decision makers in the fight to preserve our water. But not all solutions come from governments. Here are a few important water conservation and flood management solutions Mashable has explored in the past.

  1. Making wild rivers national parks
  2. Sand dams
  3. Fog collection
  4. Sustainable desalination
  5. Rain-collecting architecture

Read the full article about the water crisis by Teodosia Dobriyanova at Mashable.