The Evolving Story of Freshwater Thinking
The recognition of freshwater as a finite and vulnerable resource with planetary boundaries has evolved significantly over recent decades. Historically, water was primarily viewed through a resource extraction lens, with little consideration for sustainability limits or equitable access. The emergence of environmental consciousness in the 1960s and 1970s began shifting this perspective, highlighting connections between water quality, ecosystem health, and human wellbeing.
The concept of planetary boundaries, introduced by Rockström and colleagues in 2009, explicitly included freshwater use as one of nine critical Earth system processes defining a “safe operating space” for humanity. This framework provided the scientific foundation for the Doughnut Economics model, which emerged in 2012 through the Oxfam paper “A Safe and Just Space for Humanity”1. The doughnut model integrated environmental ceilings (including freshwater limits) with social foundations (including water access), creating a visual framework that recognized both ecological limits and human needs.
In recent years, international water governance has continued to evolve, with the formal recognition of water as a human right by the UN in 2010 and increasing attention to transboundary water management challenges. Climate change has added new urgency to freshwater management as changing precipitation patterns, glacier melt, and extreme weather events disrupt traditional water availability and infrastructure systems. The incorporation of freshwater into the Doughnut Economics framework represents an important evolution in how we conceptualize water management—moving beyond siloed approaches to recognize the inherent connections between ecological health and human wellbeing23.
Where Global Freshwater Stands Today
Consumption and Withdrawal Realities
Global freshwater withdrawal has increased sixfold over the past century, far outpacing population growth. Agriculture remains the dominant user, accounting for approximately 70% of global freshwater withdrawals, with industrial and domestic use comprising the remainder. This intensive extraction has led to water stress in many regions, with approximately two-thirds of the global population experiencing severe water scarcity at least one month per year45.
Regional disparities in water consumption are stark. While average per capita water consumption in developed countries can exceed 300 liters per day, many communities in water-stressed regions subsist on less than 20 liters per day—below the minimum requirement for basic hygiene and wellbeing established by international standards. These disparities highlight the tension between the social foundation (ensuring minimum water access for all) and the ecological ceiling (limiting overall freshwater extraction)16.
Quality and Pollution’s Toll
Water quality degradation represents another dimension of freshwater challenges. Industrial pollution, agricultural runoff containing fertilizers and pesticides, and inadequate wastewater treatment all contribute to declining water quality globally. Nitrogen and phosphorus loading from agricultural activities has been identified as particularly problematic, creating eutrophication in freshwater systems that threatens both ecological integrity and human health.
Studies examining the sustainability doughnut have found that both biodiversity loss and nitrogen cycles have already exceeded their planetary boundaries, with freshwater pollution playing a significant role in both transgressions7. The planetary boundary for phosphorus and nitrogen loading is particularly closely linked to freshwater systems, as these nutrients primarily impact ecosystems through water pathways, creating complex interactions between multiple planetary boundaries72.
Groundwater and Social Gaps
Groundwater resources, which represent approximately 30% of global freshwater, face particular sustainability challenges. Aquifer depletion rates in major agricultural regions far exceed natural recharge rates, essentially constituting mining of a non-renewable resource on human timescales. This unsustainable extraction leads to land subsidence, saltwater intrusion in coastal areas, and decreased water security for future generations.
The social dimension of freshwater—ensuring universal access to clean water and sanitation—remains a significant challenge globally. Despite progress under sustainable development initiatives, approximately 2 billion people still lack access to safely managed drinking water, and 3.6 billion lack safely managed sanitation services. These gaps in the social foundation have profound implications for human health, gender equality, education, and economic opportunity15.
Forecasting the Flow of Change
Shifting Patterns and Rising Risks
Climate change represents perhaps the most significant disruptor to future freshwater availability and distribution. Warming temperatures are projected to intensify the hydrological cycle, increasing both flood risks and drought severity. Glacier melt in major mountain systems—which currently serve as crucial water towers for downstream populations—threatens long-term water security for billions of people.
Models project that by 2025, up to half the world’s population could be living in water-stressed areas. Regions already experiencing water scarcity, including parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and the American Southwest, are likely to face intensifying challenges. These changes threaten to push water extraction beyond planetary boundaries in many regions while simultaneously undermining the social foundation of water access26.
Population and Economic Pressures
Population growth and economic development will further strain freshwater resources. By 2050, global water demand is projected to increase by 20-30%, driven primarily by industrial growth, expanded irrigation, and increased domestic consumption in developing economies. Urban water demand is expected to increase by 50-70% as cities continue to grow, particularly in water-stressed regions of Asia and Africa.
These demand increases will necessitate difficult trade-offs between competing water uses—agriculture, industry, energy production, and domestic consumption—highlighting the need for integrated approaches to water governance that consider both ecological limits and social needs48.
Innovations in Tech and Governance
The implementation of Doughnut Economics principles in water management offers promising directions for balancing ecological limits with social needs. Amsterdam’s adoption of Doughnut Economics as a policy framework includes specific attention to water management, recognizing both local and global impacts of water consumption patterns and seeking regenerative approaches to urban water systems6.
Future freshwater management will require evolved governance systems that can address the complexity of water challenges across scales. Integrated Water Resources Management approaches align well with Doughnut Economics principles by seeking to balance multiple objectives within defined boundaries. The Mexico City case study demonstrates how the doughnut framework can be applied to analyze water policies and identify transitions needed to achieve sustainability with a socio-ecological approach48.
Hurdles to Sustainable Freshwater
Competing Needs and Complex Choices
One of the fundamental challenges in freshwater management is balancing competing demands across sectors and stakeholders. Agriculture, industry, energy production, domestic use, and ecosystem requirements all place demands on limited water resources, creating difficult trade-offs. These trade-offs often involve not just quantity allocations but also quality considerations, timing of availability, and spatial distribution.
The Doughnut Economics framework highlights the tension between staying within planetary boundaries while ensuring that all people have access to sufficient water for wellbeing. This tension becomes particularly acute during periods of scarcity, when meeting immediate human needs may conflict with maintaining ecological flows necessary for ecosystem health72.
Governance and Economic Barriers
Water governance systems are often highly fragmented, with responsibilities divided across multiple agencies, jurisdictions, and scales. This fragmentation creates coordination challenges, policy incoherence, and implementation gaps. Additionally, water governance frequently operates in silos separate from related policy domains such as energy, agriculture, land use, and climate policy.
Conventional economic approaches often fail to adequately value water resources or account for their full social and ecological costs and benefits. Water pricing rarely reflects either scarcity or environmental externalities, leading to inefficient allocation and overexploitation. The application of Doughnut Economics to water management requires fundamentally rethinking economic models that treat water primarily as an input to production rather than as a foundation for social and ecological wellbeing31.
Knowledge Gaps and Social Inequities
Effective freshwater management within planetary boundaries requires robust data on water availability, use, quality, and ecosystem requirements. However, significant data gaps persist, particularly regarding groundwater resources, ecosystem water needs, water quality parameters, and actual water consumption (as opposed to withdrawal). These knowledge gaps undermine efforts to establish and monitor boundary limits for sustainable water use95.
The differential impacts of water challenges across social groups—with marginalized communities typically bearing disproportionate burdens—creates issues of environmental justice that must be addressed in water governance frameworks. Without explicit attention to equity dimensions, water management approaches risk reinforcing existing social inequalities even while pursuing environmental sustainability goals81.
Opportunities for Transformation
Integrated Water Resources Management
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approaches offer a framework for coordinating water, land, and related resources management to maximize economic and social welfare without compromising ecosystem sustainability. This integrated approach aligns conceptually with Doughnut Economics by seeking to balance social and ecological considerations within defined boundaries.
The implementation of IWRM at watershed scales allows for context-appropriate solutions that consider local ecological conditions, water availability, and social needs. Watershed …solutions that consider local ecological conditions, water availability, and social needs. Watershed-based governance structures can facilitate stakeholder participation, adaptive management approaches, and more effective coordination across sectors and jurisdictions48.
Innovations for Efficiency and Circularity
Technological innovations offer significant potential to reduce pressure on freshwater resources while maintaining or improving social outcomes. Precision agriculture technologies can reduce agricultural water consumption—the largest sectoral user globally—by 20-30% while maintaining or increasing yields. Smart water technologies in urban systems can identify leaks, optimize distribution, and enable more efficient use.
Water reuse and recycling technologies represent another promising direction, creating circular water systems rather than linear extraction-use-disposal patterns. Advanced treatment technologies enable safe water reuse for multiple purposes, from industrial applications to landscape irrigation to indirect potable reuse, significantly reducing freshwater extraction needs26.
Rights-Based and Inclusive Governance
Rights-based approaches to water governance—which recognize both the human right to water and the rights of ecosystems to maintain ecological flows—offer frameworks for balancing social and environmental imperatives. Legal recognition of these rights creates mechanisms for protecting both dimensions of water sustainability.
Inclusive governance approaches that meaningfully engage diverse stakeholders in decision-making processes can lead to more effective and equitable water management. Particularly important is the inclusion of traditionally marginalized groups, including indigenous communities, women, smallholder farmers, and urban informal settlement residents, who bring critical perspectives on water needs and management approaches41.
Freshwater Within the Doughnut Economics Framework
Freshwater as a Planetary Boundary
Within the Doughnut Economics framework, freshwater represents one of nine planetary boundaries that constitute the ecological ceiling—the outer ring of the doughnut. This boundary recognizes that there are quantifiable limits to freshwater withdrawals from ecosystems before critical thresholds are crossed, potentially leading to irreversible environmental changes.
The original planetary boundaries research proposed global limits for freshwater use, but regional variations in water availability mean that this global boundary must be downscaled to watershed levels for practical management purposes. Some regions have already exceeded sustainable extraction limits, while others remain well within boundaries76.
Beyond quantity, the quality dimension of freshwater resources is closely connected to other planetary boundaries, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, biodiversity loss, and land-system change. The interconnected nature of these boundaries highlights the need for integrated approaches to environmental management that consider multiple planetary systems simultaneously75.
Water in the Social Foundation
Water also appears explicitly in the social foundation—the inner ring of the doughnut—recognizing access to clean water and sanitation as fundamental human rights and prerequisites for wellbeing. The social foundation draws from internationally agreed minimum social standards, including the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation).
The water component of the social foundation includes not just physical access to water but also dimensions of affordability, quality, reliability, and cultural appropriateness. This multidimensional understanding acknowledges that water needs vary across contexts and that truly meeting the social foundation requires addressing these diverse dimensions21.
Importantly, water access interconnects with many other elements of the social foundation, including food security, health, gender equality, and income and work. For example, improved water access reduces time spent collecting water (particularly benefiting women and girls), decreases waterborne disease incidence (improving health outcomes), and enables small-scale irrigation (enhancing food security and livelihoods)71.
Measuring and Monitoring Freshwater
Applying the Doughnut Economics framework to freshwater management requires developing appropriate metrics and monitoring systems that can track progress toward both environmental sustainability and social equity. Several methodological approaches have been developed to quantify the doughnut model for specific contexts, including the Sustainability Window method, which evaluates whether development paths remain within both ecological limits and social foundations9.
At the watershed scale, indicators might include: streamflow relative to ecological requirements; groundwater levels relative to recharge rates; water quality parameters; percentage of population with access to clean water and sanitation; water affordability indices; and gender equity in water-related decision-making. These indicators need to be contextually appropriate while still connecting to global boundary concepts95.
The city of Amsterdam, which has adopted Doughnut Economics as a policy framework, uses a “city portrait” methodology to assess its performance across multiple dimensions, including water-related impacts both locally and globally. This approach recognizes that local water consumption can have impacts far beyond municipal boundaries through virtual water trade and supply chain connections62.
Conclusion
This exploration of freshwater through the Doughnut Economics framework reveals both significant challenges and promising opportunities for transforming water management toward more sustainable and equitable approaches. Several key findings emerge from this analysis:
First, freshwater occupies a unique position within the Doughnut Economics model, appearing explicitly in both the ecological ceiling (as a planetary boundary) and the social foundation (as a human right). This dual positioning highlights water’s fundamental importance for both ecosystem functioning and human wellbeing, and the inherent connections between these dimensions.
Second, current freshwater management approaches in many regions are failing to stay within the “safe and just space” of the doughnut. Ecological limits are being exceeded through over-extraction and pollution, while significant portions of humanity still lack access to clean water and sanitation. These shortfalls in both dimensions demonstrate the need for transformative approaches that simultaneously address environmental sustainability and social equity.
Third, the complex, interconnected nature of water challenges necessitates integrated approaches that move beyond siloed management. The Doughnut Economics framework offers a valuable conceptual model for this integration, encouraging consideration of multiple ecological boundaries and social needs simultaneously. This holistic perspective aligns well with watershed-based management approaches that consider the full range of hydrological, ecological, and social factors.
Fourth, applying the Doughnut Economics framework to freshwater management requires context-specific implementations that respect local ecological conditions, social needs, and cultural perspectives. While global planetary boundaries provide important reference points, effective water governance must be grounded in local realities and developed through inclusive processes that engage diverse stakeholders.
The Doughnut Economics framework offers a compelling vision for reshaping our relationship with freshwater resources—moving beyond the false choice between environmental protection and human development, and instead seeking approaches that secure both. By conceptualizing a “safe and just space” for freshwater management, the framework provides both a goal and a guide for transformative change toward water systems that are regenerative by design and distributive in their benefits.