In an era of ‘water bankruptcy’, digital solutions could hold the key to global water security.
Last January, the United Nations (UN) declared a state of ‘water bankruptcy’ in its Global Water Bankruptcy report, pointing to the irreversible depletion of aquifer reserves due to increasing human demand.
The UN’s global review paints a bleak picture: 75 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure; more than half of the planet’s major lakes are drying up; and two billion people live on land that is subsiding due to groundwater over-pumping. Over the past 50 years, wetlands equivalent to the entire land area of the European Union have been lost.
The 2026 UN Water Conference, to be held later this year, advises to protect every drop. Addressing this challenge requires the use of digital technology to improve efficiency, reduce losses, and close funding gaps in utilities facing increasing operational and financial pressure.
According to Jaime Barba, Head of software and analytics platform Xylem Vue, ‘Digital solutions are no longer optional. They are now essential operational requirements. The future of water will be digital, or there will be no future.’
The road to digitalisation: five trends
The report Water Technology Trends 2026: a strategic guide to the future of smart water, released by Xylem Vue, identifies five key trends that are paving the way towards the digitalisation of water across the globe: generative artificial intelligence (AI), agent-based architectures, cybersecurity, early warning systems, and public-private partnerships to boost operational efficiency.
AI is poised to be a catalyst for this change, transforming fragmented information into decisions based on structured data. The five key trends paving the way towards the digitalisation of water are:
1. Generative AI
Generative AI is now considered an operational capability in its own right, as it goes beyond synthesising knowledge and recommending actions to help break down information silos and unlock the value of unstructured data. This will enable utilities to become more resilient, more efficient, and better equipped to measure, anticipate, and act in real time.
2. Agent-based architectures
These new technologies will enable natural language queries to be converted into analytical flows that can be audited and automated, with a special focus on security and control in critical infrastructures.
3. Cybersecurity
Security, and more specifically cybersecurity, remains a cornerstone of the profound transformation of water. Growing interconnectivity and the proliferation of cyber attacks make it a strategic necessity – not only to comply with existing regulations, but also to ensure service continuity and protect public health.
4. Early warning systems
Extreme weather events will continue to be commonplace across Aotearoa New Zealand. Early warning systems play a leading role, enabling highly accurate predictions of how river basins are likely to respond to severe meteorological events.
Their evolution towards platforms that integrate high-resolution hydraulic models, advanced weather forecasting, and stochastic and statistical analysis, combining multiple real-time information sources, underscores the importance of ensuring greater public safety when these events occur.
5. Public-private partnerships
Finally, partnerships between public authorities and private enterprises continue to be a driving force behind the transformation required across the sector. Numerous initiatives – such as the PERTE programme in Spain, the Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow in the United States, and the West Bengal Drinking Water Sector Improvement Project in India – show how cooperation, including collaboration between companies, can multiply operational efficiency and reduce risk, especially when data governance and interoperability are built in from the start.