Discussed last week at the forum's annual meeting in Davos, the report on managing future water needs argues that "we are now on the verge of water bankruptcy in many places, with no way of paying the debt back".
Many of the "regional water bubbles" are already bursting in parts of China, the Middle East, the southwestern US and India, and "more will follow", with serious consequences for regional economic and political stability, the report continues.
Climate change further adds to the urgent need to manage water efficiently, the report notes. In many parts of the world, glaciers act as "water banks". For example, melting glaciers in the Himalayas and Tibet alone will cause serious water supply problems for more than two billion people, it predicts.
Referring to a UN-sponsored 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the report underlines that 70 of the world's major rivers, including the Colorado, Ganges, Jordan, Nile and Tigris-Euphrates, are "near [their] maximum extraction levels to supply water for irrigation systems and for reservoirs".
Meanwhile, growing global demand for food is set to place more pressure on water resources for agriculture. "The volatility in food prices in 2008 should be treated as an early warning sign of what is to come," the report warns.
Discussing the findings, Davos participants noted that while economic stimulus plans include huge investments in improving agriculture, infrastructure, clean energy and trade, politicians "unfortunately rarely invest in improving the resource on which those outcomes depend: water".
Most governments, they argue, fail to realise how "intimately" other policies are linked to water policy, or simply refuse to introduce water pricing policies by fear of losing elections.
"How do you convince people that water has a value and must be paid for?," asked a patron of the Global Water Partnership, Margaret Catley-Carlson. Some called for the establishment of a basic human right to water, whereby governments would have to secure and subsidise free supplies of a minimum amount of water for drinking and hygiene. Beyond which, "rates must apply," participants declared.
In a Fondation Robert Schuman policy paper on the EU and the challenge of water scarcity, published just days after the Davos meeting, the director general of a water supply and cleansing company Veolia Eau, Antoine Frérot, called for the EU to commit to "a low-water economy" - just as it is committed to a low-carbon economy to mitigate climate change.
This, Frérot underlines, to combat wastage of water, increase the efficiency of available resources and better exploit alternative sources, such as rainwater, seawater desalination and reuse of wastewater.
The World Water Forum is set to take place next month in Istanbul, gathering the water community and politicians from all over the world to debate how to achieve water security.
Next week, an international meeting entitled Peace with Water will take place in the European Parliament to discuss a 'Memorandum for a World Water Protocol', focusing on conflict prevention and the promotion of the right to water for all.
