It's not so much that there's a water shortage in a lot of places but merely that the natural sources of drinking water that people use are drying up forcing th

It's not so much that there's a water shortage in a lot of places but merely that the natural sources of drinking water that people use are drying up forcing them to switch to more expensive sources of water. My home country the Netherlands actually has a water shortage. But much of it is below sea-level and we pump a lot of non salty water into the sea (at great expense) to keep the land dry. So, this is a notion that needs a little explaining. How come there is a shortage in a country like that? Very simple: farmers don't like it when their fields are a swamp, so ground water levels are kept very low. This is done by draining, pumping, etc. Most of that water ends up in the sea. This in turn is governed by local policy on which farmers have a lot of influence. Additionally, they use groundwater for irrigating the land. Because dry land doesn't produce a lot of crops. So, ground water levels are at a historic low in a lot of places. To the point where nature is struggling and water companies that also rely on ground water for supplying drinking water have to remind people to limit their water usage. In a country that is basically a swamp below sea level. The solution to all this: change policies and stop using ground water at an unsustainable rate. There's plenty of other water. But using that is more expensive. Ground water tends to be very clean as it has been filtered through sediment layers. Surface water from rivers, lakes, etc. needs more treatment. Collecting rain water seems very uncommon. But there is plenty of that as well. Most of it is pumped and drained straight to the sea. There is an abundance of water. So much that it is actually a problem. If my country stops pumping and draining water out to sea, it won't take long for a lot of it to be reclaimed by it. And in a pinch, we can actually take ocean water and desalinate it. This would of course be ridiculous in the Netherlands considering that two of the largest rivers in Europe flow through it to the North Sea and given that it rains a lot here (less than it used to, but still). Other places in the world have a lot less water. But this planet is far from running out of water. Most of it is still covered by water and we have plenty of ways to produce drinking water from that. All we need to do is transport it around to where it is needed. In some places, desalination is cheaper than doing that.