Abstract
The world faces multiple water crises, including overextraction, flooding, ecosystem degradation and inequitable safe water access. Insufficient funding and ineffective implementation impede progress in water access, while, in part, a misdiagnosis of the causes has prioritized some responses over others (for example, hard over soft infrastructure). We reframe the responses to mitigating the world’s water crises using a ‘beyond growth’ framing and compare it to mainstream thinking. Beyond growth is systems thinking that prioritizes the most disadvantaged. It seeks to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation by overcoming policy capture and inertia and by fostering place-based and justice-principled institutional changes.
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Acknowledgements
This research was, in part, supported by the Hilda John Endowment of the Australian National University, the Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship Grant No. FL190100164 ‘Water Justice: Indigenous Water Valuation and Resilient Decision-Making’ and the REACH programme, funded by UK Aid from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for the benefit of developing countries (programme code no. 201880).
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R.Q.G. is senior author. The nine co-lead authors are listed alphabetically after the first author. All other co-authors are listed alphabetically after the co-lead authors. R.Q.G., S.F., L.R. and S.A.W. conceived and designed the Perspective. R.Q.G. co-ordinated the writing process. S.F. and R.Q.G. designed Figs. 1, 2, 4 and 5. R.Q.G., P.C., N.-M.N. and S.F. designed Fig. 3. R.Q.G., S.F., P.R.W. and S.A.W. designed Fig. 6. R.Q.G., S.F., J.H., P.K., N.-M.N., C.R., L.R., J.T.-J., S.A.W., P.R.W., F.A., A.K.B., E.B., R.B., P.C., R.C., R.H., T.K., I.K., A.M., R. Martins, R. McDonnell, W.N., R.R., N.S., B.R.S., J.S., D.T., C.T., Y.W. and J.W. wrote and edited the text.
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Grafton, R.Q., Fanaian, S., Horne, J. et al. Rethinking responses to the world’s water crises. Nat Sustain 8, 11–21 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01470-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01470-z
