Urban Water Stress

Hydraulic infrastructure enables many cities to escape water stress. This figure shows surface water and groundwater dependence and stress for large cities in our global survey, called the City Water Map, after accounting for their hydraulic infrastructure. For the water sources of each city, various surface and groundwater hydrology models were used to measure water stress. For details, see McDonald, R. I., K. Weber, J. C. Padowski, M. Florke, C. Schneider, P. Green, T. Gleason, S. Eckman, B. Lehner, D. Balk, T. Boucher, G. Grill and M. Montgomery (2014). "Water on an urban planet: Urbanization and the reach of urban water infrastructure." Global Environmental Change 27: 96-105. Online at http://dx.doi.org/110.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.1004.1022