World Water Resources and Water Use: Modern Assessment and Outlook for Future

During 1990-1996 the scientists of the State Hydrological Institute, St. Petersburg, under the scientific guidance of the author of this article, made a new combined assessment of the world water resources, water use and water availability in the dynamics including a forecast for a remote future.The article gives in brief some new quantitative data on the dynamics of renewable water resources of continents. Physiographic and economic regions and selected countries of the world which are generalized from the world hydrological network data. The values of the global water use for the needs of population, industry and agriculture are given as well as the value of the water availability in the dynamics for the current century and for the future before 2010-2025. The analysis of long-term trends of the world water resources, water use and water availability changes has been made depending on the climatic factors and socio-economic conditions.It is planned to publish all the results of these studies as a monograph "World Water Resources at the Beginning of XXI Century" in 1999, Cambridge, University Press.