Then, in the first three months of 2017, rain fell at 228% more than its normal level, thanks to climate change, scientists say.

Its major aquifers receded at a combined rate of 16 million acre-feet per year, and roughly 1,900 wells ran dry. From 2011 to 2016, the state suffered its worst drought in 1,200 years. Much of the same is happening in California.

The city imports 40% of its water, and Ramón Aguirre Díaz, director of the Water System of Mexico City, has blamed “heavier, more intense rains, which mean more floods, but also more and longer droughts.” Once horizontal streets now undulate like BMX tracks. As the city draws on the aquifer below, the effect is like drinking a milkshake through a straw. Meanwhile, Mexico City, built on ancient lake beds, is now sinking in some areas at a rate of nine inches a year. There’s not an infinite supply of water.”

Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at Nasa, has warned that “the water table is dropping all over the world. The Ganges Basin in India is depleting, due to population and irrigation demands, by an estimated 6.31 centimetres every year. Of the world’s major aquifers (gravel and sand-filled underground reservoirs), 21 out of 37 are receding, from India and China to the United States and France. What’s more? Right now, according to a Nasa-led study, many of the world’s freshwater sources are being drained faster than they are being replenished. In other words, the near future presents one big freshwater drain after the next. Water withdrawal for energy, used for cooling power stations, is also expected to increase by over 20%. Much of the demand is driven by agriculture, which accounts for 70% of global freshwater use, and food production will need to grow by 69% by 2035 to feed the growing population. Water demand globally is projected to increase by 55% between 20. And both populations and temperatures are ever-rising, meaning that the freshwater we do have is under severe pressure. Given that 70% of the Earth’s surface is water, and that volume remains constant (at 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometres), how is a water shortage even possible? Well, 97.5% is seawater unfit for human consumption. The water needs to come from such different sources for a reason – it’s because there is a global freshwater crisis. The H20 in an Indian can of Coca-Cola includes treated rainwater, while the contents in the Maldives may once have been seawater. The next time you open a can of soft drink, consider where the water inside it came from.

Other words for running out