The report, "Rich countries, poor water", claimed that mismanagement, climate change, drought, and the loss of natural wetlands which store water, along with pollution, and over-consumption were stripping valuable supplies of water.
"The crisis in rich nations is proof that wealth and infrastructure are no insurance against scarcity, pollution, climate change and drought. They are clearly no substitute for protecting rivers and wetlands, and restoring floodplain areas," Jamie Pittock, Director of WWF's Global Freshwater Program said.
The report also warned that major schemes in emerging nations, such as redirecting rivers like China's Yangtse, merely shifted problems elsewhere.
Wealthy nations
It singled out some wealthy nations, saying that in Europe, countries on the Atlantic seaboard have experienced more droughts while Mediterranean nations are squandering natural resources with poorly thought out expansion, adding that the pollution of wetlands in Eastern Europe will need to be tackled.
In Australia, annual rainfall has been declining since a sudden drop of 15 percent in the 1970s, prompting many state governments to introduce water restrictions while considering longer term plans like desalination or recycling plants.
It warned that Australia has one of the highest water usages in the world and that its natural groundwater sources, which gave the desert town of Alice Springs its name, were "ancient" and no longer recharged.
Each day, urban Australians use and discard an average of 300 litres of water each, Europeans consumed about 200 litres, while people in sub-Saharan Africa existed on 10-20 litres a day.
Although Japan continues to have a “high quality” supply of water and sanitation engineering WWF says the country’s high population density was beginning to gain the upper hand, with Japan’s water supplies increasingly contaminated.
Thirsty cities
Big cities are also proving to be thirster than ever. In some instances, such as in Houston, the report says they are simply over-consuming, others like London face an aging system which is estimated to leak about 300 olympic sized swimming pools a day.
Many cities in the United States are also using substantially more water than can be replenished naturally, but the report praised New York, noting that it had less severe water problems because of a tradition of conserving key catchment areas in the state.
The water report wasn’t just about human consumption; it warned that increased salt levels or contamination by pollutants that would otherwise be diluted are a growing threat.