All over the globe, countries have taken different views about where and why water should flow. But regardless of the hubris or high-mindedness of those views, scientists think most may soon face an entirely different outlook—one in which that flow could turn off tighter than a bathroom tap.

Scientists at National Center for Atmospheric Research published a study this week predicting that increasing temperatures caused by climate change could spur global droughts in the next 30 years unlike any before.

“We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community,” author Aiguo Dai stated in a press release. “If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous.”

The study used more than 20 climate models, a comprehensive index of drought conditions, and numerous other published studies to reach its conclusion, according to the release. Areas expected to be hit hard include the Southwestern United States, Latin America, Africa, Australia, and Southern Asia, including China. Although some areas, such as Northern Europe, Russia, and Canada will see wetter conditions, that won’t alleviate the widespread drought.

“The term 'global warming' does not do justice to the climatic changes the world will experience in coming decades,” Richard Seager of Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory is quoted as saying in the press release. “Some of the worst disruptions we face will involve water, not just temperature.”

The question that spans continents is how can already overtaxed arid-region water distribution systems do anything to respond to this newest drought prophecy.

The U.S. Southwest is struggling with the 11th year of a drought that has drained Lake Mead—which holds water allocated by the 1922 interstate Colorado River Compact to Lower Basin states Nevada, Arizona, and California—to unprecedented low levels. As of late September, water managers were about eight feet from calling it a "shortage," a condition that for the first time would invoke a 2007 emergency management plan because the terms of 1922 Compact can't be met, according to a New York Times article.

“We’re approaching the magical line that would trigger shortage,” Bureau of Reclamation Lower Colorado Regional Director Terry Fulp told the Times. “We have the lowest 11-year average in the 100-year-plus recorded history of flows on the basin.”

Thanks to a plan that would divert more than the usual amount of water from Lake Powell in the Upper Basin, that final magic eight feet of Lake Mead's shoreline may not appear. This reprieve in determining which Lower Basin taps to turn off comes courtesy of a 60-foot gain Lake Powell has been able to make after a serious low six years ago. Regardless, if Lake Mead can't regain a reserve and continues past the shortage threshold, it enters the range where Las Vegas' pipes will have trouble reaching the water and where Hoover Dam could stop producing electricity, according to the Times article.

Australia, another soon-to-be-drier country, may be closer to comprehensively rebalancing water use in one of its major basins—although not without a high social price.

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority plan would cut the amount of water allocated for irrigation from the Murray, Darling, and Murrumbidgee rivers by about a third, according to a Reuters report. Although the water would go a long way towards replenishing the long overtaxed rivers, detractors say it will be a severe hit to Australia’s prime agricultural region.

“Cutting water use … will reduce the supply of food and fibre and increase the number of farmers leaving the land, resulting in the destruction of farm and rural communities,” Victorian Farmers' Federation President Andrew Broad told Reuters.

But supporters of the plan say those economic and social losses are miniscule compared to those from environmental failure if the plan doesn’t go through, especially under future drought conditions anticipated with climate change.

“We've known for years that the (irrigation) system has been over-allocated, now it's time to get the balance right," Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is quoted as saying. “We need a sustainable river system—it's the only way to keep communities around the river sustainable as well.”

But if one lesson that might be generalized from the American and Australian experiences is that it's very hard to build enough water infrastructure to keep ahead of a growing population in arid lands, let alone under drought conditions in a changing climate, China is choosing to disregard that lesson.

China is building a lavish system to divert water across thousands of miles to supply the swelling capital of Beijing, according to the Los Angeles Times. The multi-channeled system, which is expected to cost $62 billion, has been likened to the Great Wall.

Some don’t think the massive infrastructure project is at all great, saying that it will decimate everything from ancient architecture to ecosystems to entire villages.

"They are robbing the water of the rest of China to supply Beijing—and it probably won't work anyway," Dai Qing, a water issues activist, told the Times.

Dai Qing said the project was doomed by lack of clean source water and the likelihood of pollution in transit. The government has conceded that water from a portion of the project might be too toxic even for agriculture, according to the article. An especially ambitious piece of canal work actually travels 180 feet beneath the Yellow River, which is too polluted to use for drinking.

No matter the local approach to water stewardship, awareness of our climate plight will be important at all levels. Indeed, Aiguo Dai points out that lower greenhouse gas emissions might well affect his drought projections.

In the absence of successful climate change mitigation efforts, however, the increased probability of drought and a burgeoning population present a sobering prospect for a future that leaves us all high and dry.

“We have a very finite resource and demand which increases and enlarges every day,” Colorado River Water Users Association President John Zebre told the New York Times. “The problem is always going to be there. Everything is driven by that problem.”