Writing in Lancet Global Health, they predict cases will rise from 36 million to 115 million by 2050, if treatment is not improved by better funding.
A growing ageing population is behind the rising numbers.
Some of the highest rates of blindness and vision impairment are in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
The percentage of the world's population with visual impairments is actually falling, according to the study.
But because the global population is growing and more people are living well into old age, researchers predict the number of people with sight problems will soar in the coming decades.
Analysis of data from 188 countries suggests there are more than 200 million people with moderate to severe vision impairment.
That figure is expected to rise to more than 550 million by 2050.
"Even mild visual impairment can significantly impact a person's life," said lead author Prof Rupert Bourne, from Anglia Ruskin University.
"For example, reducing their independence... as it often means people are barred from driving."
He said it also limited people's educational and economic opportunities.
The worst affected areas for visual impairment are in South and East Asia. Parts of sub-Saharan Africa also have particularly high rates.
The study calls for better investment in treatments, such as cataract surgery, and ensuring people have access to appropriate vision-correcting glasses.
Prof Rupert Bourne said: "Interventions provide some of the largest returns on investment.
"They are some of the most easily implemented interventions in developing regions."
"They are cheap, require little infrastructure and countries recover their costs as people enter back into the workforce," he said.
The charity Sightsavers, which works in more than thirty countries to try to eliminate avoidable blindness, says it is seeing a rise in conditions such as cataracts, where the eye's lens clouds over.
"Due to an ageing population and a rise in chronic disease, we expect the burden of blindness to only grow within the world's poorest countries" said Imran Khan from the charity.
He said health systems in developing countries need to be improved, and more surgeons and nurses need to be trained to deliver sustainable eye health care.

Austin Haughwout claims he was kicked out of Central Connecticut state university over the footage.
The institution says he was expelled over threats to shoot people there. Mr Haughwout argued he was only joking.
Last month, Mr Haughwout and his father were ordered to give information about the drones videos to the authorities.
Two separate videos showed drones rigged up to carry to the weapons hovering low in woodland in Connecticut, in the north-east United States.
The first, posted in July 2015, showed a handgun firing rounds of ammunition.
The second, which appeared in December that year, featured a flamethrower attached to a drone burning a turkey on a spit.
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) opened an investigation into whether or not Mr Haughwout had broken any laws, though local police said they did not believe he had.
Ruling last month, a judge said that he and his father, Bret, must hand documents over to the FAA, relating to the purchase of the gun, the drone and any money made from having posted the videos on YouTube, among other information.
Mr Haughwout, 19, blamed his expulsion on the notoriety that followed the posting of the drone videos and is taking legal action in the New Britain superior court in a bid to be allowed to return, AP reports.
It says Central Connecticut state officials denied that claim and instead pointed to the alleged threats.
But a lawyer for Mr Haughwout said that what some may have interpreted as threats, were actually jokes, which are protected by the right to free speech.
Mr Haughwout has also been in the news over two other incidents.
In June this year, local police said they had charged him with enticing a minor with a computer, attempted sexual assault and possession of images of child abuse after officers said they had found images of child abuse on his mobile phone, AP reports.
It says Mr Haughwout's lawyer reportedly called that arrest warrant "overly broad" and suggested that Clinton police had it in for his client because of the drone videos.
Last year, Mr Haughwout was also charged with assaulting police officers. That case continues.
And, in 2014, before the posting of the weaponised drone videos, a woman was charged with assaulting Mr Haughwout because she was upset that he had been using a drone to record video above a beach. Mr Haughwout posted footage of that confrontation on YouTube.
The number of blind people across the world is set to triple within the next four decades, researchers suggest.
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A teenager who posted videos of drones firing a gun and a flamethrower is suing his university after he was expelled, the AP news agency reports.