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Thousands of Americans drink tap water poisoned by unsafe levels of a cancer-causing heavy metal, and government authorities are doing little to stop it, according to a new report from clean water activists.

The chemical hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, gained notoriety as the carcinogenic water contaminant that Erin Brockovich sued a utility over in California-and the new report from advocacy organization Environmental Working Group finds that it shows up in the water systems of major cities all over the country.

The data estimate that water supplies serving 218 million Americans-more than two-thirds of the population-contain more chromium-6 than California scientists have deemed safe. The group estimated that if nothing changes, chromium-6 in tap water will lead to more than 12,000 excess cases of cancer by the end of the century.

The findings are one more sign of a broken state and federal regulatory system that enabled crises in Flint, Michigan, and Hoosick Falls, New York, among other cities where dangerous contaminants in tap water threatened public health, advocates say.

"This is a repeating story of the lack of regulatory oversight and scientific updates to ensure clean drinking water," Bill Walker, a coauthor of the report, told TakePart. "A basic aspect of public health is being able to drink the tap water. We have not achieved that in the U.S."

The EWG report analyzes data on chromium-6 collected for the first time under a federal monitoring rule passed four years ago. The current federal standard for chromium in drinking water was set in 1991, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set a limit of 100 parts per billion for total chromium, including chromium-3, a less threatening contaminant. Back then, chromium was linked to skin rashes, but the potential cancer threat posed by the pollutant had not been thoroughly researched. Knowing what we know now, activists say the federal standard is meaningless.

Despite mounting evidence that chromium-6 is carcinogenic, only one state has passed a limit focused on this contaminant, which can occur naturally or seep into the water supply through industrial pollution. California began enforcing a chromium-6 limit of 10 parts per billion two years ago.

Citing instances of cancer helped Brockovich build a case against Pacific Gas and Electric Company over contaminated water in Hinkley, California, in 1993. For her, the looser federal standards on chromium-6 are disappointing.

"This is an abject failure by the EPA, including members of Congress charged with overseeing the agency, and every American should be outraged by this inaction," Brockovich said in a statement released by EWG.

California scientists also came up with a considerably more stringent but unenforceable goal for the contaminant: Set at 0.02 parts per billion, it was designed to prevent more than one in 1 million people from getting cancer if the person consumed a half gallon of water daily over 70 years. The goal was established as part of a health proceeding before official rules were set, a common precursor to regulatory action. The final rulemaking proceeding considers not just health risks but also what is achievable for industry-and industry balked at meeting the standard, resulting in the looser standard and the lingering frustrations of activists.

The EPA says its work on chromium-6 is ongoing. It is studying the potential risks linked to the contaminant, which may be a step toward regulating the chemical. The agency expects to release a draft of its risk report for public comment next year, according to Monica Lee, EPA press secretary, in a statement emailed to TakePart.

She also pointed out that data gathered by the EPA show most U.S. drinking water systems are beating California's enforceable standard for chromium-6-the 10 parts per billion standard. "While this standard only applies to water systems in California, less than 2 percent of the systems that collected data under [the 2012 monitoring rule] reported hexavalent chromium at levels exceeding this standard," she wrote.

In many cities, chromium-6 sample data exceeded the public health goal set by California scientists but not the enforceable limit, according to the EWG report, which ranked water systems serving more than 1 million customers. The worst offenders: City of Phoenix, Missouri American Water (St. Louis County), City of Houston, City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Suffolk County Water Authority in New York.

Yet in Phoenix and St. Louis, water officials say customers should not worry.

The average level of chromium-6 in Phoenix water samples was 7.853 parts per billion, well above the public health goal set by California scientists. The authors of the EWG report said they did not study why the levels are higher in some cities than others and that it would be hard to extrapolate where the pollution is coming from based on the data they used.

Susan Kinkade, a civil engineer in the environmental services division at the City of Phoenix Water Services Department, cast doubt on the usefulness of the figures in the EWG report, emphasizing that Phoenix's water is safe to drink and that the system is abiding by federal rules.

"That number is skewed," she said in a phone interview with TakePart. "That is an average of all the samples we collected. We sampled at groundwater wells, surface water points, and within the distribution system. The highest number came out of our groundwater wells, but that's only 2 percent of our supply."

Kinkade said there are natural reasons chromium-6 shows up in Phoenix samples. "It's a naturally occurring element. The Southwest is one of the regions in the U.S. with the highest level of naturally occurring chromium. The wells are situated where there is a natural chromium deposit. It's the geology. It's not industrial contamination," she said.

RELATED: FBI Aids Criminal Investigation Into Flint's Water Crisis

Missouri American Water had the second-highest average chromium-6 levels for water systems serving more than 1 million customers. The average was 1.258 parts per billion. But Brian Russell, a spokesperson for Missouri American Water, emphasized that it is safe to drink the water in St. Louis.

"We test for total chromium, which includes chromium-6, every year as required and consistently come in well below EPA requirements for safe drinking water, and we tested specifically for chromium-6 only in 2013 and found levels that ranged from 0.9 to 1.6 parts per billion on average. There are no federal requirements to test for chromium-6, or prescribed levels to achieve, but at that level we even come in below the state of California's stringent level of 10 parts per billion," he wrote in an email to TakePart.

Russell added that it is unclear how chromium makes its way into the water supply in his system. "It occurs naturally from the breakdown of a number of different products and via industrial processes, so trying to name the exact source would be little more than hypothesis on our part," he said.

Nevertheless, the EWG report authors have clear-cut advice for residents of Phoenix and St. Louis County: Use water filters.

"In areas like St. Louis or Phoenix, people should not wait around for a cleanup by their local agencies. They should take action to protect themselves by buying a home water filter," said Walker, the report coauthor. He uses water filters in his home and recommended the watchdog group's buying guide for the products.

Kinkade, the Phoenix official, warned about the potential downsides of filters.

"I always caution customers about point-of-use water filters if the customers aren't good at maintaining them," she said. Failing to follow the directions can create a "little factory for microbes growing under your kitchen sink."

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For the EWG report authors, the data highlight a problem that is bigger than chromium-6. They see a regulatory system hijacked by industry influence at the state and federal levels.

"The process of setting standards has been sandbagged by the chemical and electrical power industries," Walker said.

"It's extremely surprising and frustrating that as the science changes, including what we know about the toxicity and its prevalence of this contaminant, there's the inability of our government to keep pace with that change," report coauthor David Andrews said.

Bryan Goodman, a spokesperson for the industry group American Chemistry Council, told TakePart by email that the data available on the health effects of chromium-6 are limited.

"Because of the limited scientific data available to inform how low environmental levels of this naturally occurring substance could impact human health, ACC supported a third party research organization to undertake a large, multiple institution research study. ACC believes [regulators] should consider the entire scientific database on hexavalent chromium as they make regulatory decisions about this substance," he wrote.

In setting their public health goal, scientists in California cited studies that link chromium-6 to cancer. For instance, they said their analysis of data from China "found increased rates of stomach cancer in people exposed to high levels of chromium-6 from drinking water."

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The Chemical Erin Brockovich Warned About Is in Water All Over America

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Thousands of Americans drink tap water poisoned by unsafe levels of a cancer-causing heavy metal, and government authorities are doing little to stop it, according to a new report from clean water activists.

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Groundwater is a critical resource for most people who live in rural areas of the world. To put it in perspective, around three in every five rural households in sub-Saharan Africa rely on aquifers accessed by hand dug or drilled wells as their primary water source. We have previously written that the common ideal of rural water supply in developing countries is shifting away from point-source handpumps towards higher volumes of water provided in more convenient locations, namely with higher-capacity groundwater pumping systems and piped distribution networks. While Water Mission supports this ideal and is actively working with government and development partners to make it a reality, there is a potential complication to rapid expansion of rural water services.

We know surprisingly little about the sustainability of the Earth's groundwater resources, particularly in developing countries. Global monitoring systems exist for hydrological phenomena such as precipitation, stream flow, and water quality - but not for groundwater. The British Geological Survey has devoted significant effort to cataloging what is known about availability of groundwater resources in sub-Saharan Africa through their Africa Groundwater Atlas initiative.

However, as was highlighted in this session at the 2017 Stockholm World Water Week, there is a general lack of data on groundwater withdrawal and recharge rates. This information gap is driving a growing concern that exploitation of groundwater resources paired with low or misunderstood aquifer recharge could lead to depletion of resources that have been relied on for centuries. The risk posed to rural populations because of uninformed groundwater development is often referred to as a "hidden" crisis because aquifers cannot be seen and the impacts are not understood.

Historically, there has not been a simple or cost-effective way to measure or monitor changes in aquifer volume at the global scale. Although pumping tests which are typically conducted to measure the sustainable yield of drilled wells are uncomplicated, they are labor intensive. Complex environmental and hydrogeological studies can give scientists perspective on aquifer recharge, but they are expensive and often inaccurate or inconclusive. These methods have limited scalability considering the global nature of the hidden groundwater crisis.

Furthermore, since current methods only provide insight into the status of groundwater resources at one point in time, they require significant ongoing investment to measure changes and predict long-term trends. There is a need for low-cost, scalable data collection systems which are capable of continuously monitoring withdrawal and recharge of groundwater aquifers for decades.

In collaboration with our partners at SonSet solutions and IBM jStart, Water Mission has developed a remote sensing system that enables effective and efficient monitoring of aquifer sustainability as well as rural water system functionality. The SatWater communicator can receive real-time data from any type of sensor such as flow rate, pressure, or oxidation-reduction potential (a proxy for chlorine residual) and transmit from anywhere in the world to a web-based data alerting and analysis dashboard called the MAP, or "Monitoring and Alerting Platform" ( click here to read more about the development of the MAP and watch the following video demonstrating its functionalities).

The system brings acute technical issues and long-term performance trends to light, empowering managers to make actionable decisions and track responsiveness. Water Mission uses the system to monitor groundwater sustainability by mounting robust pressure sensors in drilled wells and measuring daily fluctuations in water level. The system triggers an alert if a significant decline in water level over time is registered.

Click here to view a diagram illustrating how sensors can be utilized to monitor functional and environmental sustainability of a rural water supply system.

Click here for more information and technical specifications on the SatWater communicator.

Water Mission's remote monitoring system has strong potential to improve management of groundwater resources and enable expansion of rural water services because it addresses key scalability issues. Since the communicator utilizes satellite instead of a mobile network to transmit data, the platform is capable of rapid deployment without needing to negotiate multiple service agreements - SatWater communicators have been installed in ten countries to-date under a single global contract.

Furthermore, the total life-cycle cost of sensors and 10 years of data transmission is a few thousand dollars per water supply system - incremental when the far-reaching impacts of the data availability is considered. The challenge we face along with our field partners in realizing those impacts is to share and utilize the data, integrating remote monitoring data streams into established national and global monitoring systems and translating it into action.

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Exposing the Hidden Groundwater Crisis with Remote Sensors | Water Mission

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Groundwater is a critical resource for most people who live in rural areas of the world. To put it in perspective, around three in every five rural households in sub-Saharan Africa rely on aquifers accessed by hand dug or drilled wells as their primary water source.

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Tap water is mostly off limits at the Head Start daycare center in the southern Missouri town of Ava.

The center's cook, Sandra Porter, avoids the faucet when rinsing potatoes, preparing macaroni and performing other kitchen chores as she prepares meals for the nearly five dozen 3- and 4-year-olds.

That's because the well that serves the daycare has reported some of the highest water lead levels in the state over the past six years, according to an Associated Press analysis.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has been working with the daycare to find a solution, but for now, the center goes through gallons and gallons of bottled water. It's a necessary precaution in a daycare: Even low levels have been shown to affect children's intelligence, the ability to pay attention and academic achievement.

"Our kids have always used bottled water," said Porter, who serves as both cook and water coordinator at the daycare. "They have never drunk the (tap) water. I use bottled water when I cook and to wash the fruits and vegetables."

The Associated Press analyzed lead sampling results from the Environmental Protection Agency's Safe Drinking Water Information System. The AP looked at 25 years of data from about 75,000 drinking water systems that are subject to the lead rule that went into effect in 1991, which calls for water systems to keep lead levels below 15 parts per billion.

The analysis found that nearly 1,400 water systems serving 3.7 million Americans have violated the federal lead standard at least once since Jan. 1, 2013. Among the violators are 278 systems that exclusively serve schools and daycares in nearly every state, some of which reported lead levels among the highest in the nation.

Fourteen water systems in Missouri were among those with high lead samples, according to the analysis. All 14 serve small populations and get their water through private wells. Only one public system, in the small western Missouri town of Waverly, is on the list.

Missouri was the global leader in lead production in the late 19th and early 20th century. The agency website says that even today, some of the largest remaining lead deposits are still beneath the ground in southern and eastern Missouri. But the connection with water is unclear.

The Head Start center in Ava, a town of 3,000 residents 55 miles southeast of Springfield, gets its water from a private well drilled on the property when the center opened six years ago. Sampling has found alarmingly high lead levels at the daycare - five of the 10 highest in Missouri from 2012 to 2015. One 2014 test revealed lead levels more than four times the federal standard.

Natural resources agency officials have told the daycare that they're working on a solution, but there is no timetable for it, Porter said. In the meantime, tap water is for hand-washing and other non-ingestion uses only.

"Some days I go through several gallons to cook with, and they go through these big 5-gallon jugs (for drinking water) every couple of weeks," Porter said.

Parents are aware of the high lead levels, and they're aware of the precautions taken to protect their kids, Porter said. She said none have complained or expressed concern.

The analysis also showed one high lead sample at Six Flags St. Louis, a reading of 112.0 parts per billion in 2014. The water was fed only to two older water fountains that weren't accessible to guests, and when the water failed to meet EPA standards, the fountains were removed, according to Six Flags spokeswoman Elizabeth Gotway.

Missouri's 14 areas of concern

Here are the 14 Missouri water systems with lead level samples that have exceeded the 15 parts per billion federal standard based on data provided by the Environmental Protection Agency's Safe Drinking Water Information System. All but one of the 14 systems is private, the lone exception being the water system in Waverly, a western Missouri town of 840 residents.

All 14 use ground water as a source:

▪ Spinnaker Point in Lake Ozark. Population served: 75. Samples over limit since 2010: 4. Highest sample: 47.5 parts per billion.

▪ Eastbourough Subdivision in Rogersville. Population served: 144. Samples over limit since 2010: 3. Highest sample: 68.1 parts per billion.

▪ Ava Head Start in Ava. Population served: 75 (preschool center). Samples over limit since 2010: 5. Highest sample: 308.1 parts per billion.

▪ Waverly water system in Waverly. Population served: 840. Samples over limit since 2010: 2. Highest sample: 99.8 parts per billion.

▪ Hawks Nest Condominium Association in O'Fallon. Population served: 35. Samples over limit since 2010: 3. Highest sample: 69.7 parts per billion.

▪ Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka. Population served: 3,200. Samples over limit since 2010: 1. Highest sample: 112.0 parts per billion.

▪ Red Oak Subdivision in St. Louis. Population served: 50. Samples over limit since 2010: 2. Highest sample: 44.6 parts per billion.

▪ Riverview Mobil Home Park in Union. Population served: 145. Samples over limit since 2010: 2. Highest sample: 35.1 parts per billion.

▪ Pelican Bay Condominiums in Lake Ozark. Population served: 175. Samples over limit since 2010: 1. Highest sample: 37.6 parts per billion.

▪ Lakepointe Condominiums in Chesterfield. Population served: 35. Samples over limit since 2010: 2. Highest sample: 23.5 parts per billion.

▪ Riverview Nursing Center in Mokane. Population served: 30. Samples over limit since 2010: 1. Highest sample: 22.7 parts per billion.

▪ Missouri American-Riverside Estates in Joplin. Population served: 742. Samples over limit since 2010: 1. Highest sample: 37.0 parts per billion.

▪ Paradise Landing/Kimberling Shores in Kimberling City. Population served: 33. Samples over limit since 2010: 1. Highest sample: 15.1 parts per billion.

▪ Fugate Mobil Home Park in Pittsburg. Population served: 100. Samples over limit since 2010: 1. Highest sample: 15.2 parts per billion.

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Lead levels in water raise alarm in Missouri towns

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A daycare center in Ava, Mo., which gets its water from a well, has alarmingly high lead levels - five of the 10 highest in Missouri from 2012 to 2015. The center uses bottled water for the kids to drink.

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Since 1835, the City of St. Louis Water Division has been dedicated to supplying the highest quality water to our customers. We are proud to say that in 2010, our water met or exceeded the standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

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FENTON, MO (KTVI)-Something fishy is going on with the water supply in Fenton. Residents complain it smells and even tastes like fish.

Missouri American Water says despite the smell, the water is safe to drink. They hope to have the problem fixed later Friday.

Residents began complaining about the water on Tuesday. The water company says the problem is at its south treatment plant, which treats water from the Meramec River but they don't know exactly what's causing it.

The company added carbon to the water to mask the flavor until they can find the source of the problem. Some customers aren't taking any chances..

Many went out and bought bottled water but again, the utility says the tap water is safe to drink.

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Missouri American Water to fix problem with fishy tasting water in Fenton

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FENTON, MO (KTVI)-Something fishy is going on with the water supply in Fenton. Residents complain it smells and even tastes like fish. Missouri American Water says despite the smell, the water is safe to drink. They hope to have the problem fixed later Friday. Residents began complaining about the water on Tuesday.

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33 Common poisons in some state's drinking water

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33 Common poisons in some state's drinking water

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Levels of a widely used class of industrial chemicals linked with cancer and other health problems - polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) - exceed federally recommended safety levels in public drinking-water supplies for 6 million people in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

The study was published Aug. 9 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

"For many years, chemicals with unknown toxicities, such as PFASs, were allowed to be used and released to the environment, and we now have to face the severe consequences," said lead author Xindi Hu, a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard Chan School, Environmental Science and Engineering at SEAS, and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. "In addition, the actual number of people exposed may be even higher than our study found, because government data for levels of these compounds in drinking water is lacking for almost a third of the U.S. population - about 100 million people."

PFASs have been used over the past 60 years in industrial and commercial products ranging from food wrappers to clothing to pots and pans. They have been linked with cancer, hormone disruption, high cholesterol, and obesity. Although several major manufacturers have discontinued the use of some PFASs, the chemicals continue to persist in people and wildlife. Drinking water is one of the main routes through which people can be exposed.

The researchers looked at concentrations of six types of PFASs in drinking-water supplies, using data from more than 36,000 water samples collected nationwide by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2013 to 2015. They also looked at industrial sites that manufacture or use PFASs; at military fire-training sites and civilian airports where firefighting foam containing PFASs is used; and at wastewater-treatment plants. Discharges from these plants - which are unable to remove PFASs from wastewater by standard treatment methods - could contaminate groundwater. So could the sludge the plants generate, which is frequently used as fertilizer.

The study found that PFASs were detectable at the minimum reporting levels required by the EPA in 194 out of 4,864 water supplies in 33 states across the United States. Drinking water from 13 states accounted for 75 percent of the detections: California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Minnesota, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Illinois, in order of frequency of detection.

Sixty-six of the public water supplies examined, serving six million people, had at least one water sample that measured at or above the EPA safety limit of 70 parts per trillion (ng/L) for two types of PFASs, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Concentrations in some locations ranged as high as 349 ng/L for PFOA and 1,800 ng/L for PFOS.

The highest levels of PFASs were detected in watersheds near industrial sites, military bases, and wastewater treatment plants - all places where these chemicals may be used or found.

"These compounds are potent immunotoxicants in children and recent work suggests drinking-water safety levels should be much lower than the provisional guidelines established by EPA," said Elsie Sunderland, senior author of the study and associate professor at both the Harvard Chan School and SEAS.

Other Harvard Chan authors of the study included Philippe Grandjean and Courtney Carignan. Funding for the study came from the Smith Family Foundation and a private donor.
From the authors of the study: We have mapped watersheds in the United States that have potentially high concentrations of PFASs based on U.S. EPA data. This does not mean that all drinking water supplies within the highlighted regions contain high PFAS concentrations, but that at least one sample from at least one water supply was reported to be at or above levels considered safe by the U.S. EPA between 2013 and 2015. However, no measurements have been made in many water supplies across the country. We recommend increased monitoring of these contaminants in our drinking water. For more information, please contact the EPA: Cathy Milbourn, Milbourn.cathy@Epa.gov, or Monica Lee, Lee.monica@Epa.gov. PFASs and reduced immune response
Another Harvard Chan School study, led by Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, also suggested negative health impacts of PFAS exposure. That study looked at a group of about 600 adolescents from the Faroe Islands, an island country off the coast of Denmark. Those exposed to PFASs at a young age had lower-than-expected levels of antibodies against diphtheria and tetanus, for which they had been immunized. The findings suggested that PFASs, which are known to interfere with immune function, may be involved in reducing the effectiveness of vaccines in children.

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Unsafe levels of toxic chemicals found in drinking water of 33 states

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Levels of a widely used class of industrial chemicals linked with cancer and other health problems - polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) - exceed federally recommended safety levels in public drinking-water supplies for 6 million people in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers from the Harvard T.H.

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The lead-poisoned drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., has gotten all the headlines, but California has a water contamination problem that endangers far more people, and it has existed for decades. State officials knew for a generation that many Californians lack access to clean, safe drinking water, yet, disgracefully, they did not begin to address the issue until five years ago.

The state Legislature is now poised to chalk up a historic achievement as it negotiates Senate Bill 623, which would establish a fund to subsidize adequate water treatment for most of the roughly 1 million Californians who still need it. It's the last step in enabling small, impoverished water systems throughout the state to deliver clean water to their customers.

As co-director of the Visalia-based Community Water Center, Laurel Firestone has helped lead an underdog campaign for clean water over the last decade. "This is the moment," she told me over the phone. "We're finally at a point where we could actually solve this."

The state's bad water is concentrated in the mostly Latino farmworker communities of the San Joaquin Valley, but nearly all of California's 58 counties include small, rural communities with tainted water. Residents there are forced to take their chances or spend an inordinate amount of their usually small incomes on bottled water.

The biggest danger is arsenic, which like uranium, another contaminant, occurs naturally in the soil in some parts of the state.

The biggest danger is arsenic, which like uranium, another contaminant, occurs naturally in the soil in some parts of the state. Drink enough arsenic-contaminated water and you may contract cancer or other grave diseases.

Farmers bear responsibility for nitrate, the second-biggest contamination source, which enters the water supply from agricultural runoff and manure. Nitrate can cause "blue baby syndrome," a potentially fatal disorder in infants, and other serious ailments in pregnant women and children.

Racism plays a part in the contamination crisis, but so do poverty, patchwork water systems, and, until recently, an overestimation of the quantity of contaminants required to trigger illness. On top of that, the dominant water narrative in the state pits farmers against fish and environmentalists; clean water advocates have had trouble catching politicians' attention with their equally important story.

Regardless of the reasons for the crisis, the government's longstanding neglect of the problem has been appalling. In some cases, as cities with good water treatment facilities grew, they all but surrounded smaller unincorporated communities that didn't have the funds to fix their contaminated water, yet the larger cities refused to absorb the smaller systems.

In Tulare County, for example, the 1971 general plan went so far as to name 15 unincorporated low-income and minority communities whose drinking water and wastewater infrastructure was deemed unworthy of investment because the communities had "little or no authentic future." In fact, 13 of the 15 communities still exist, but the exclusionary policy stayed in the county's general plan until about a decade ago.

As Latino political power and the environmental justice movement have grown, the issue has gained traction. In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation making California the first state to recognize that "every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable and accessible water."

"We really did a big campaign to get that established," Firestone said. "Since then, we've tried to build on that in multi-faceted ways."

One important step was Senate Bill 88, passed in 2015, which empowered the State Water Resources Control Board to require consolidation of bad water systems into adequate ones. In February, the water board began publicly identifying water systems that are out of compliance with state and federal clean water regulations on its Human Right to Water Portal website.

Most tellingly, new water quality regulations issued by regional water boards allowed the state to threaten punitive enforcement actions against farmers whose practices have contributed to nitrate contamination. In response, the farmers are negotiating with legislators over a provision in SB 623 to set a regular fee they will pay into the new water treatment fund.

Impoverished systems can tap an array of federal and state grants for capital improvements to their treatment equipment, but they still lack funding for operations and maintenance. SB 263 will make available the few hundred million dollars a year needed for that purpose. It's a modest sum for a state with an annual budget of more than $170 billion, and, as water board Deputy Director Darrin Polhemus explained to me, subsidizing "the high cost of operations and maintenance in these small systems is essential."

In addition to collecting money from growers to finance the fund, the legislation would charge the state's water users a small fee on their monthly bills, in the same way that telephone users subsidize phone service for the needy. Because this amounts to a tax, SB 623 needs the support of two-thirds of the state's legislators - a high but not insurmountable bar.

A recent poll paid for by the California Water Foundation found that 72% of Californians are willing to pay as much as an extra dollar per month on their water bills to fix the contaminated systems. This is a powerful indication that Californians want to make good on the state's groundbreaking 2012 proclamation: Clean drinking water is a human right, and providing it, is an act of simple human decency.
Jacques Leslie is a contributing writer to Opinion. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook

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California's water crisis is dangerous, just like Flint's. Will the state clean it up once and for all?

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The lead-poisoned drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., has gotten all the headlines, but California has a water contamination problem that endangers far more people, and it has existed for decades. State officials knew for a generation that many Californians lack access to clean, safe drinking water, yet, disgracefully, they did not begin to address the issue until five years ago.

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The 2015 Global Risk Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is a reminder, and stark warning, that we use far more water than what is sustainably available. According to the report just published in Davos, water scarcity is the biggest economic and societal risk for the next ten years. The 2030 Water Resources Group that I am chairing is the most important Davos-based initiative to address this risk.

First, some orders of magnitude of the problem. In 2015, freshwater abstraction for all kind of human use, mostly to grow food, increased to some 5,000 cubic kilometres, while sustainable annual supply is only 4,200 cubic kilometres. If there is no change in the way we use water, withdrawals will continue to increase with world population and prosperity to some 7,000 cubic kilometres by 2030. In other words, to re-establish balance and sustainability by then, we have to find ways to reduce withdrawals by some 40%.

The 2030 Water Resources Group (2030 WRG) aims to respond to this challenge with a global, multi-stakeholder structure, becoming active through local structures. In many respects, it is a unique form of public-private-civil society partnership; it helps governments, at their request, transforming the management of their water resources for the sustainable development and economic growth of their countries.

2030 WRG is founded on the understanding that governments, the private sector, and civil society have a common interest in the sustainable management of water resources, and that unsustainable use of water will have negative effects for economic development, wellbeing of people, food security, and ecosystems. As we want to broaden the membership base, this post is also an invitation to signal your possible interest in joining.

2030 WRG was launched in Davos in 2009 and later on formally incubated in the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group. It is a combined global and local public-private partnership, involving also NGOs.

Initial discussions that ultimately led to its creation started at a private breakfast organised by Nestlé, with guests from other companies, governments, intergovernmental agencies, academia and civil society in January 2005, an event where I personally together with other leading participants for the first time clearly supported water as a human right.

But, since declaration alone are never sufficient, we defined an initial roadmap to overcome the increasing freshwater overdraft. We agreed that it was necessary to first create awareness outside the specialised water community, to develop some new analytical tools ( the water cost curve), to contribute to creating an enabling environment, and to bring together the relevant local stakeholders to actually drive the process in order to solve the emerging global water crisis with a specific set of relevant, cost-effective local individual and collective actions.

2030 WRG wants to be disruptive - in the way Schumpeter defined it: i.e., not re-inventing any wheels, but re-arranging information into a perspective that triggers different, more relevant action.

Water is local, overuse requires local solutions; one-fits-all approaches do not work. Water overuse must be addressed in the main river basins; at this level our tools are supposed to help close the gap between long-term water resource needs and water resource availability in a sustainable, cost-effective and equitable manner.

This approach was discussed and confirmed at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Governing Council of 2030 WRG in Davos. It is about local solutions, as the following examples of country- and watershed-specific action shows:

In South Africa, in close co-operation with, and actually driven by government and local partners, measures were taken to reduce the very high leakage in municipal water supply systems: the No Drop incentive program to reduce municipal leakages with a focus on performance based contracts to achieve desired outcomes. There are measures to address drainage from coal-mines, which pollutes rivers for downstream users and ecosystems. And there are efforts to improve inefficient and outdated irrigation schemes, as well as current exclusion of new farmers in these old schemes.

In Bangladesh, first discussions with government and local stakeholders took place in 2014, with a focus on improving water use efficiency (increasing reuse and recycling) and reducing pollution from certain industries. Further discussions have taken place on improving agricultural efficiency and water productivity, and enhancing wastewater treatment and surface water quality.

In Mongolia, the partnership with 2030 WRG was initiated personally by the country's president Elbegdorj in one of the water sessions in Davos some years ago. In the meantime, several rounds of discussions with government and local stakeholders addressed incentives for sustainable water resources management, water challenges in the Gobi area, including a need to reduce water use by industry, mining and municipalities to make sure herders are not losing their livelihood. Discussions further addressed Ulaanbaatar's - the capital of Mongolia-future water and waste water challenges, including the need for reducing leakage in the existing system and increasing service to existing "Ger" areas (informal settlements). Stakeholders agree that this requires robust data systems and water governance structures.

In India, at national level, 2030 WRG discussed with the government its possible national engagement with a specific emphasis on the Ganga river, possibly as a demonstration of replicable water sustainability models for public-private-civil society engagement within the urban, industrial and agricultural sectors. A broad variety of stakeholders that 2030 WRG brought together wants to develop and implement economic incentives for enhanced long-term sustainability of waste-treatment plant operations. Additional discussions and projects were set up in two of the Indian states, namely Karnataka and Maharashtra.

In Tanzania, and then in Kenya 2030 WRG discussed with the government and local stakeholders possibilities to increase water use efficiency across all sectors, but in particular in irrigated agriculture, better inter-sectoral coordination (including at the Government level) to overcome conflicting demands on water between agricultural and energy sectors as well as for ecosystems and municipal use, and the need to improve water security, including potential interventions relating to better use of groundwater, increased small scale storing capacity and rainwater harvesting, and potential for inter basin transfers etc. but also enhancing wastewater treatment and reducing pollution and, very importantly in this country, improving the collection and dissemination of water related data.

Finally, in Peru, together with the government and local stakeholders, 2030 WRG looked into ways to prioritise investments in coastal catchments and the need for innovative financial instruments to develop and promote investment mechanisms to attract funds to the water sector.

Let me add three final comments:

The WRG is not a lobby group, but a partnership looking for solutions in the interest of all stakeholders around a watershed. In that sense, it is also not a charity or a philanthropic effort by private enterprise, but rather something that has to be seen within the concept of creating shared value. We are engaged as private enterprises, putting our money and personal efforts into this effort, because it is important both for society and for the success of our business.

Second, from our discussions with local stakeholders, we know of the need for credibly comprehensive solutions for individual watersheds, particularly to overcome the so-called 'tragedy of the commons'.

What we have made a rule, therefore, is that we only work in a country if we are requested to by the government, to ensure comprehensive views and strategies. Normally, it's either the President or the Prime Minister who expresses their interest; we then suggest that they appoint a coordinator because water is treated by many different agencies, ministries, etc.

Third, with help of the WEF, and our partners in government, intergovernmental agencies, academia and civil society, we still have to create more awareness about the urgency of increasing water scarcity and the need for comprehensive solutions to it. We have to make governments aware that the water issue is urgent and has to be tackled now.
This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum. To keep up with the Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Author: Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is the Chairman of the Board at Nestlé S.A. Image: People collect water at a camp for displaced people at M'poko International Airport in Bangui February 26, 2014. REUTERS/Camille Lepage.
Environment and Natural Resource Security

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How to tackle the global water crisis, locally

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The 2015 Global Risk Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is a reminder, and stark warning, that we use far more water than what is sustainably available. According to the report just published in Davos, water scarcity is the biggest economic and societal risk for the next ten years.

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Low water, lock repairs send U.S. river freights soaring

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Low water, lock repairs send U.S. river freights soaring

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http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/low-water-lock-repairs-send-u-s-river-freights-soaring/article_af991c38-6df1-5f1a-850c-4889c68538bc.html

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South St. Louis water main break disrupts service

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South St. Louis water main break disrupts service

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http://fox2now.com/2017/12/15/south-st-louis-water-main-break-disrupts-service/

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Water is evaporating from the beautiful landscapes of Mozambique. There is too little to keep people alive, and the lack of it is forcing them from their homes, splitting up families and killing children. Photographer Mário Macilau travelled around his country, talking to people whose only supply of water is from filthy rivers that dry up quickly in the hotter months.

In northern Mozambique's Niassa province, only 21% of people have access to safe sanitation and just 42% have a clean water supply. Only half the area's boreholes and wells are operational, forcing women and children to spend a great deal of time walking to fetch water.

Eudicia and Josefina, both 12

Eudicia lives in Muassi village. She and her friend Josefina miss school up to four times a week as they have to fetch water from the riverbed.

"Going to collect water is not fun. I'm not happy because it's too far. I'm not laughing because if I'm just laughing I won't reach home until night. There are snakes and dogs there," Eudicia says.

"We go in groups, because we're afraid to go alone. Carrying the water is too heavy; it is dirty and has a bad smell, like grass or old leaves ... Even when we do have water to wash, the water is dirty, so if you wash you are not really clean. I feel shy when I am dirty or my clothes are not clean.

"I miss school every other day or so, to collect water. I don't feel good because I am absent from school."

My favourite subject is Portuguese ... I want to be a teacher, because teachers can receive a good salary

In Mozambique, the statistics are stark: 14.8 million people have no clean water, and more than 21 million are without a safe place to go to the toilet. Women and children make long, exhausting journeys to collect dirty water for their families. A lack of private toilets in schools causes many girls to leave when they start menstruating. Health centres are overcrowded and have inadequate sanitation. All of this leads to disease outbreaks: seven of every 100 children die before turning five.

Eudicia's best friend is Josefina, 12 (left). "My favourite subject is Portuguese, and then social sciences. I want to be a teacher, because teachers can receive a good salary.

"I go to the river three times in a day," she says. She fetches water for her family every other day. And because the river is far away, it means she has to miss school. "I'm not feeling happy, I don't feel good about missing school.

"I have seven siblings, four girls and three boys. My best friend is Eudicia ... We go to the river together. We have a game called namudóze. We make a circle on the ground and then throw a stone in the air. While the stone is in the air you have to move a small stone on the ground into the circle, then catch the stone that you threw on the way down. You keep going until you reach 12 stones in the circle. Sometimes Eudicia wins, sometimes I win.

Sisters aged 13 and 15 braid each other's hair in Senhote village, Nampula province

Josefina says she does not want to get married yet. "I want to wait. Next year I will go to grade six in Etatara. I'll still live at home, but I'll have to walk to school there. It's far! My father supports me to go to school. He says, 'Don't be absent from school. You go to school to get a job.'"

Madalena Wissiquisse, 52

Wissiquisse is a nahaco, a healer who cures using a combination of spiritual methods and herbal medicines, and is thought to possess magical powers.

Her husband died six years ago. "Ever since the day he passed away we have been suffering a lot ... I have a lot of children.

"My job as a nahaco I only do when people come to my house and ask me. No one taught me. My late grandfather told me in a dream to come to the bush, so when I went there they were telling me to do this and that, and that's how I learned.

The water situation here is bad. Even at the river we are fighting with each other to get water

Wissiquisse

"There is a spiritual connection to the river. When I go down to the river and ask the spirits for things, they give it to me. The same way that Christians go to church and pray to God to ask for things. We believe there are spirits in the river who will give us these things.

She says the most common thing women come to her about is when they are having trouble conceiving. "I give them some medicines, which they take home to help them.

"Another problem is HIV. But I only give medicines for diseases like gonorrhoea or syphilis. To treat HIV properly, I can't do it, so I tell them to go to the hospital.

"This kind of diarrhoea here - because of the water, I can't treat it ... When someone has a problem with their stomach from the water, they go to the hospital.

"The water situation here is bad. Even at the river we are fighting with each other to get water. Someone can go and take water and another one can come back without any. They are fighting because everyone wants to be the first to take water, so they come and say I should take it first, and then someone else comes and says they should take it first, and they start fighting.

"Because of this water problem I am suffering a lot. See all these children here - there is only that one small hole for water, for everyone to drink and to bathe. So it's a big problem for us, and that's why people fight.

"When you bring water here, things will change. It will be good, many people will not suffer because of sickness any more."

Rogério, 14

"I live here in M'mele, in my grandfather's house. My grandmother and my younger brother also live there, but he's sick. I used to go to school but now I don't go, I just decided myself not to go any more, mainly because of walking. I couldn't always manage to walk there with the stick, because my leg was always hurting.

"When I was a small baby, we were running away from the war and someone shot at my leg, that's why that leg is gone now. I was with my mother when we were running, I was in her arms. My mother died. Then later, in a following year, my father also died from diarrhoea.

"I am not thinking about them that much, only my mother because I miss her. For now I mostly don't think anything.

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'We fight with each other over water': rivers run dry in Mozambique - in pictures

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Water is evaporating from the beautiful landscapes of Mozambique. There is too little to keep people alive, and the lack of it is forcing them from their homes, splitting up families and killing children. Photographer Mário Macilau travelled around his country, talking to people whose only supply of water is from filthy rivers that dry up quickly in the hotter months.

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By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world's population living in water-stressed regions.
Source

780 million people live without clean drinking water.
Source

More than one-third of Africa's population lacks access to safe drinking water.
Source

Compared to today, five times as much land is likely to be under "extreme drought" by 2050.
Source

Unless measures are taken, California will demand three times more groundwater than can be supplied over the next 100 years.
Source

More than two billion people worldwide rely on wells for their water.
Source

25-33% of Chinese do not have access to safe drinking water.
Source

There will be about 1 billion more mouths to feed worldwide by 2025 and global agriculture alone will require another 1 trillion cubic meters of water per year (equal to the annual flow of 20 Niles or 100 Colorado Rivers).
Source

By 2035, the world's energy consumption will increase by 35 percent, which in turn will increase water use by 15 percent according to the International Energy Agency.
Source

In 2050 increased population will result in a 19% increase in agricultural water consumption.
Source

Water demand is projected to grow by 55 percent by 2050 (including a 400-percent rise in manufacturing water demand).
Source

46% of the globe's (terrestrial) surface is covered by transboundary river basins which can lead to future conflicts over water.
Source

Agriculture accounts for ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals and up to 90% in some fast-growing economies.
Source

According to satellite images, the Colorado River Basin has lost about 65 cubic kilometers (15.6 cubic miles) of water from 2004 to 2013. This is twice the amount stored in Lake Mead.
Source

In the US, thermoelectric power plants account for nearly 50% of all freshwater withdrawals.
Source

For decades the Ogallala Aquifer in the United States, one of the world's largest aquifers, has tapped at rates thousands of times greater than it is being restored.
Source

About 4.5 billion people globally - already live within 50km of an "impaired" water resource - one that is running dry, or polluted.
Source

Over the past 40 years the world's population has doubled and use of water has quadrupled.
Source

Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of water-stressed countries of any region.
Source

While it takes about 12 gallons per day to sustain a human the average American uses about 158 gallons.
Source

According to the U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of Global Water Security, by 2030 humanity's "annual global water requirements" will exceed "current sustainable water supplies" by 40%.
Source

The global middle class will surge from 1.8 to 4.9 billion by 2030, which will result in a significant increase in freshwater consumption.
Source

By 2050, 1 in 5 developing countries will face water shortages (UN's Food and Agriculture Organization).
Source

Half of the global population lives in countries where water tables are rapidly falling.
Source

By the year 2040 there will not be enough water in the world to quench the thirst of the world population and keep the current energy and power solutions going if we continue doing what we are doing today.
Source

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25 Facts You Should Know About the Global Water Crisis

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By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world's population living in water-stressed regions. Source 780 million people live without clean drinking water. Source More than one-third of Africa's [...]

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Jackson's water crisis continues.

Due to the recent loss in water pressure in the city, a precautionary boil water advisory has been issued Wilkins Elementary School and Whitten Middle School.

Meanwhile, Public Works continues work around the clock to repair dozens of water main breaks in the Capital City.

Public Works crews with the help of contractors spent Saturday battling the outbreak of broken water main breaks from one end of Jackson to the other.

"100 percent happy to see them fixing the leaks," said one Jackson resident.

There have been 70 confirmed breaks since Monday. As of Saturday, the city repaired 28 of the water mains.

City leaders admit it has been a challenge restoring water and getting these breaks under due to the winter blast the hit the Capital City as well as old water pipes bursting.
RELATED: City of Jackson increases efforts to battle surge in water main breaks
The water woes have forced Jackson's Public Schools to temporarily shut its doors for days and many residents are living with little to no water pressure.

"You don't ever know. When they fix this them there. We may have another leak from here to there," said Ray Hunter.

The city also points that Friday was worst day for breaks. There were 25 minor and major leaks, that's the single largest number of breaks that have occurred this year in the Capital City.

Residents affected by the water crisis are praying for relief.

"Only thing I can see is, somewhere down the line, they just need to come and fix all these pipes, but that is all over Jackson," said Hunter. "It is a hard job."

Copyright 2018 MSNewsNow. All rights reserved.

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The City of Jackson's water crisis continues

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Jackson's water crisis continues. Due to the recent loss in water pressure in the city, a precautionary boil water advisory has been issued Wilkins Elementary School and Whitten Middle School. Meanwhile, Public Works continues work around the clock to repair dozens of water main breaks in the Capital City.

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Why do I keep hearing about the California drought, if it's the Colorado River that we're "killing"?

Pretty much every state west of the Rockies has been facing a water shortage of one kind or another in recent years. California's is a severe, but relatively short-term, drought. But the Colorado River basin - which provides critical water supplies for seven states including California - is the victim of a slower-burning catastrophe entering its 16th year. Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California all share water from the Colorado River, a hugely important water resource that sustains 40 million people in those states, supports 15 percent of the nation's food supply, and fills two of largest water reserves in the country.

The severe shortages of rain and snowfall have hurt California's $46 billion agricultural industry and helped raise national awareness of the longer-term shortages that are affecting the entire Colorado River basin. But while the two problems have commonalities and have some effect on one another, they're not exactly the same thing.

Just how bad is the drought in California right now?

Most of California is experiencing " extreme to exceptional drought," and the crisis has now entered its fourth year. This month, signaling how serious the current situation is, state officials announced the first cutback to farmers' water rights since 1977, and ordered cities and towns to cut water use by as much as 36 percent. Those who don't comply with the cuts will face fines, but some farmers are already ignoring the new rules, or challenging them in court.

The drought shows no sign of letting up any time soon, and the state's agricultural industry is suffering. A recent study by U.C. Davis researchers projected that the drought would cost California's economy $2.7 billion in 2015 alone.

In addition to the economic cost, the drought has subtle and not-so-subtle effects on flora and fauna throughout the region. This current drought may be contributing to the spread of the West Nile virus, and it's threatening populations of geese, ducks and Joshua trees. Dry, hot periods can exacerbate wildfires, while water shortages are making firefighters' jobs even harder.

And a little bit of rain won't help. NOAA scientists say it could take several years of average or above-average rainfall before California's water supply can return to anything close to normal.

What about a lot of rain? Couldn't that end the drought in California and across the West?

Not necessarily. A half-decade of torrential rains might bail California out of its crisis, but the larger West's problems are more structural and systemic. " Killing the Colorado" has shown that people are entitled to more water from the Colorado than has flowed through it, on average, over the last 110 years. Meanwhile much of the water is lost, overused or wasted, stressing both the Colorado system, and trickling down to California, which depends on the Colorado for a big chunk of its own supply. Explosive urban growth matched with the steady planting of water-thirsty crops - which use the majority of the water - don't help. Arcane laws actually encourage farmers to take even more water from the Colorado River and from California's rivers than they actually need, and federal subsidies encourage farmers to plant some of the crops that use the most water. And, as ProPublica has reported, it seems that "the engineering that made settling the West possible may have reached the bounds of its potential" - meaning that even the big dams and canals we built to ferry all this water may now be causing more harm than good.

Water use policies-perhaps more than nature-have caused the water crisis in the West. As the former Arizona governor and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt told ProPublica: " There is enough water in the West ‚ [but] there are all kinds of agriculture efficiencies that have not been put into place."

While there are mixed views on whether climate change can be blamed for California's drought, a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report found climate change was not the cause. Global warming has caused excessive heat that may have worsened the drought's effects, but it isn't necessarily to blame for the lack of rain. It's true that recent years have yielded much less rain and snow than previous times in history, the NOAA report explains, but that's just a result of "natural variance" and not necessarily because of man-made pollution. But in both California and the larger Colorado River basin, mismanagement of the water supply has left the West more vulnerable to both short and long-term changes in climate.

What do you mean by mismanagement?

When officials divvied up rights to Colorado River water nearly a century ago, it happened to be a wetter period than usual. The result? The states vastly overestimated the river's annual flow. Today, the river's reserves are especially low and states are still claiming the same amount of water from the Colorado River that they always have - which is 1.4 trillion gallons a year more than the river actually produces. This sort of oversubscription is similar in California, where historic water rights give many farms first rights to California's streams and rivers, and haven't been adjusted as the state's population has increased and its cities have grown.

Wait - don't we all have equal water rights?

Well, if you believe Steve Yuhas, a resident of affluent Rancho Santa Fe, California, "we're not all equal when it comes to water." (Yuhas made the unfortunate mistake of complaining on social media that he and his neighbors deserve more water because they pay more property taxes, and "should not be forced to‚ golf on brown lawns," and was pilloried by readers of the Washington Post article that drew attention to his comments.) But actually, every state has its own laws about who gets how much water-and it has nothing to do with property taxes.

To the uninitiated, "water law" is arcane and confusing-hence the need for, yes, water lawyers). Sometimes, water law seems to defy common sense. For instance, in Colorado, if you put a barrel in your yard to collect rainwater for your plants, you are technically "stealing" that water right out of the sky; under water law," nearly every drop is spoken for."

But the underlying rule of water in the West is that the first people to show up and claim it were the first people to get it, and everyone who came after took a place further back in line. Called "prior appropriation," this remains the dominant thread in Western water issues, more than 100 years later.

So where is all this water going?

For all of the warnings people in the West get about taking shorter showers and turning off sprinklers, the fact remains that agriculture uses the most water, by far. Farming and agriculture use more than 70 percent of the water that flows from the Colorado River to the seven river basin states.

In addition to those crops, cotton is one of the thirstiest crops a farmer can grow, especially in a desert. As it happens, many of the crops that use less water entitle farmers to fewer federal subsidies, and so farmers don't have much of an incentive to switch crops. Though cotton production has dropped steeply in California, since 1995, California farmers have gotten $3 billion in federal subsidies to grow it. On top of subsidies, " Use it or Lose It" clauses in state water laws actually encourage farmers to flood their fields with much more water than they need lest they lose the right to that amount of water in the future.

Urban development is also a big factor. Las Vegas has grown faster than any other city in the West, its footprint doubling in the past 25 years as more and more people have moved there. It is far from the only urban strain on the West's water supplies, but its approach to growth is emblematic of cities from Phoenix to San Diego. Denver's metro population hit 2.7 million in 2013, more than three times what it was in 1960. For all its problems, Las Vegas pioneered ways to save water and incentivize efficiency more than a decade ago that Los Angeles is only beginning to adopt today.

What is California doing to address its water problems? Is it working?

Californians do seem to be answering the call to use less water in their daily lives after Gov. Jerry Brown imposed cutbacks in March. The state's " water czar," Felicia Marcus, continues to crack down on water waste, and creative ad campaigns are finding varying degrees of success. The state has cut deliveries of water to farmers through the state and federal aqueduct systems, and is now beginning to tackle the tough tasks of reforming water rights and curtailing some of the state's most senior users.

The federal government is also sending millions of dollars in " drought aid," and local counties are exploring how to desalinate ocean water to replenish water supplies. Some enterprising individuals are even proposing to revive old plans to tow icebergs or haul water down from Alaska.

Meanwhile, like any prolonged crisis, the drought is drawing out the best and worst in people. Some people are conscientiously conserving water in their homes in little ways-by not washing their cars or by capturing shower water from inside for their gardens outside, for instance. The drought has also inspired innovation in water conservation for restaurants, pools and lawns. Meanwhile, others have been caught stealing water from their neighbors and drought-shaming campaigns have multiplied online.

To the extent that climate change exacerbates the drought, California's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may eventually help. In 2006 the state passed a law mandating that it buy less coal-fired energy. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is now also selling its stake in the Navajo Generating Station to invest in clean energy alternatives, though the plant ( which generates more climate-warming gases than almost any other plant in the nation) will continue pumping Colorado River water to Arizona.

Will California cutbacks alleviate the larger Colorado River problem?

California uses almost one-third of the entire Colorado River flow, having a larger share than any other Colorado River basin state. California gets 16 percent of its surface water - water that comes from snowpack, streams and rivers - from the Colorado River via two huge aqueducts. The California Aqueduct runs beneath mountains into Riverside County and eventually toward Los Angeles, providing a substantial supply for both L.A. and San Diego. The All-American Canal moves water along the tail-end of the Colorado River near the Mexican border, nourishing one of the state's most valuable agriculture areas, Imperial County, where a large proportion of the nation's winter fruits and vegetables are grown.

Of the seven basin states, California holds the most senior legal rights to the Colorado, which entitle it to keep drawing water even as Lake Mead runs dry and the rest of the Colorado River states suffer through shortages. That means in the short term, not much that California does will change the situation on the Colorado, unless it were to voluntarily surrender more of its entitlement to the river. But should Colorado River shortages worsen to the point that the states ever re-negotiate that division of water, a reduction of California's Colorado River water rights could have a brutal impact on California's remaining supplies. Officials in California, like every other state in the region, are now facing a "new normal," as nature places new limits on the state's previously unchecked growth.

I don't live in California or the West, so why is this my problem?

California grows and exports a majority of the fruits and nuts eaten by the rest of the country, so water shortages there affect food supply everywhere. Calculations by the Pacific Institute indicate that, by eating food grown in California, each American indirectly uses more than 300 gallons of the state's water each week. Almonds, which require a comparatively huge amount of water to produce, have become the most visible scapegoat for an enormous problem of which they are only one small part. One almond takes almost an entire gallon of water to produce-but so does a tiny slice of cantaloupe, four strawberries, two florets of broccoli, or a fraction of an egg.

In fact, some of the biggest "water hogs," indirectly, are meat and dairy. Cows and chickens and other animals eat a lot of crops, which in turn require a lot of water. So it takes 86 gallons of water to make just 1.75 ounces of beef. Some research has suggested that the country's meat industries create such a high demand for water-thirsty feed crops, that if every American ate meat one less day a week, it could save as much water as flows through the Colorado River in an entire year.

Regardless, if the water crisis gets worse, Americans across the country can expect the cost of their food to go up, and some of it, perhaps, to not be available at all. Power prices may also rise as hydroelectric plants have difficulty generating with low water flows-and to the extent that very complicated power distribution affects a larger region, consumers far away from the Colorado River basin might feel the pinch. Finally, California and the rest of the Colorado River basin amount to the world's seventh largest economy, and contribute significantly to the country's GDP. When California struggles economically, the nation is close behind.

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California's Drought Is Part of a Much Bigger Water Crisis. Here's What You Need to Know

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Pretty much every state west of the Rockies has been facing a water shortage of one kind or another in recent years. California's is a severe, but relatively short-term, drought. But the Colorado River basin - which provides critical water supplies for seven states including California - is the victim of a slower-burning catastrophe entering its 16th year.

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places without wtr

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https://water.org/our-impact/water-crisis/

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The global water crisis has many causes, requiring many different solutions. As 1.2 billion people live in areas of water scarcity, these solutions must span policy, technology, and behaviour change to make a real difference.

A number of technological innovations address the crisis in novel ways. We asked two water experts - Vincent Casey, senior water and sanitation adviser at WaterAid, and Hannah Safford, an energy and environmental policy analyst - to assess some of the most creative approaches.

Photograph: Water is Life

In partnership with non-profit Water is Life, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed this education and filtration tool. Each page of the book provides basic water and sanitation advice, such as the importance of keeping contaminants like rubbish and faeces away from water, often unknown in developing countries. Perhaps more novel is that the advice is printed on "scientific coffee filter" paper that can be used to purify drinking water and reduce 99.9% of bacteria. Each book has enough filtration sheets to provide its reader with clean water for four years. It's being distributed in Ghana, Kenya, Haiti, Ethiopia, India and Tanzania, and a Farsi version of the book is in development.

Casey: Many different filter products will purify water and remove pathogens, but it needs to have a demand from users. It also needs to be affordable [in the local context] or come with some credit mechanism. Filters play a crucial role in making the water safe, but if you're not blocking other routes of transmission (eg flies on food, handwashing after toilet use) you will still have problems. In other words, any filter has to be part of a combined solution.

Photograph: WaterSeer

It looks like a well, but instead of withdrawing groundwater, the WaterSeer uses the surrounding environment to extract water from the atmosphere. It is planted six feet below the surface, where its lower chamber is surrounded by cool earth. Above ground, wind spins a turbine which spins fan blades inside the device. These blades send the air into an internal condensation chamber where, as the warm air cools, the vapour condenses on the sides of the chamber. Water then flows down to the lower chamber and can be extracted with a simple pump and hose. In ideal conditions, it can collect 37 litres of water a day. Developed by VICI labs in the US, the project is being tested by the National Peace Corps Association and will be piloted later this year.

Casey: If we take sub-Saharan Africa as an example, groundwater tends to be available in most places we work - about 20m below the surface. So it's a management or infrastructure problem that prevents people accessing water, not a lack of it. It's not really about fixing the problem with technology; it's about fixing the system. With this example, I would imagine there could be problem with vandalism, as the device seems quite fragile. However, that's not to say that technology is not part of the solution - it has a role, but it's makes up 20% of the whole picture, along with policy and management.

Desalination, converting saltwater into freshwater, has historically been too expensive and energy-intensive to serve as a widespread solution for improving access. However, Lockheed Martin has developed and patented a Perforene graphene filter which it claims would reduce the energy cost of conventional reverse osmosis desalination by 20%, while withstanding higher pressure and temperatures. The perforated, hyper-permeable filter is one atom thick and is said to improve the flow of water compared to conventional methods by 500%. While the technology would be hugely beneficial to the oil and gas sector, which reportedly produces 18bn gallons of wastewater each year, the company is also researching other applications for the technology, including in food and energy generation.

Safford: Desalination should only be used as a last resort. Emphasis should be placed on smart water management, reducing water losses, and increasing the uptake of water-efficient technologies practices. But in regions where there is truly not enough freshwater to meet demand, a cheaper and less energy-intensive desalination method is certainly a good thing.

Nets set up by a group of community leaders called Peruvians Without Water are used to trap water from the moisture in fog. Photograph: Mariana Bazo/Reuters

Vast mesh nets capture moisture from fog, which drips into collection trays after condensation. The largest of these projects is on the slopes of Mount Boutmezguida, a microclimate in Morocco where 6,300 litres of water can be harvested per day. The water is clean, free and instant, which is perhaps why Dar Si Hmad - the non-profit responsible for the project -was awarded the UN's 2016 Momentum for Change award. First developed in South America, fog catching systems also exist in Chile, Peru, Ghana, Eritrea, South Africa and California.

Safford: Fog catching could provide a sustainable supply of drinking water for small communities in water-scarce regions, but it is unlikely to generate enough water to significantly increase water supplies. The Mount Boutmezguida project only generates enough water to serve about 160 people per day - a project of a similar size in a developed country would serve a smaller number of people [due to higher consumption habits].

Sukhdev Vishwakarma and his daughter, Meenu, use water pumped from a solar water pump at a farms in Jagadhri. Photograph: Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan

In hot and dry climates, many farmers pump groundwater to irrigate crops, and there has been a growth in the use of solar-powered pumps. A problem arises when farmers view solar energy as free, as it can cause over-irrigation. A part-technological, part policy and management solution by CGIAR's research programme on water, land and ecosystems, and in partnership with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), incentivises farmers using solar pumps to sell excess power back to the grid. The guaranteed buy-back scheme produces a "triple win"; farmers gain income, the state gains electricity reserves, and the water source is conserved by curbing usage - all while reducing carbon emissions. The scheme is being piloted in Gujarat, and IWMI estimates that solarising India's 20m irrigation wells could reduce carbon emissions by 4-5% per year.

Casey: A good initiative addressing a serious problem through changes to policy and management, not just focusing on a technical solution. In addition, selling electricity back to the grid could generate revenue to conduct maintenance on these pumps - a good sign for the sustainability of the arrangement.
What have we missed? Have you developed technology to tackle water problems? Tell us in the comments below. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter, and have your say on issues around water in development using #H2Oideas.

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Could these five innovations help solve the global water crisis?

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The global water crisis has many causes, requiring many different solutions. As 1.2 billion people live in areas of water scarcity, these solutions must span policy, technology, and behaviour change to make a real difference. A number of technological innovations address the crisis in novel ways.

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B. K. Bangash/ASSOCIATED PRESS

It has been called the largest mass poisoning in history. After wells were drilled in Bangladesh and the rest of the Indian subcontinent in the 1970s, millions of people have been exposed to arsenic in drinking water. When leached into water from surrounding rocks and soil, the metal can-at high concentrations-cause skin lesions, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodevelopmental delays. Now, a study suggests Pakistan might be grappling with its own arsenic emergency, with up to 60 million people exposed to contaminated water.

The extent of the problem first became clear in the 1990s, when a series of studies found high arsenic concentrations across the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that 35 million to 77 million people in Bangladesh could be at risk of drinking water with unsafe levels of arsenic. And in 2014, WHO estimated that about 200 million people worldwide are exposed to concentrations exceeding the recommended limit of 10 micrograms per liter of water. Most live in Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, and Nepal.

Previous studies had revealed that groundwater in some areas of Pakistan also contained high levels of arsenic. But the extent of those risks was unknown, says Joel Podgorski, an environmental scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Dübendorf and lead author of the new study.

Podgorski's team started by measuring arsenic levels in groundwater samples collected from about 1200 wells throughout Pakistan at depths of 3 to 70 meters. Nearly two-thirds exceeded the WHO-recommended threshold, and extremely high concentrations-above 200 micrograms per liter-were found along the Indus River valley. The higher concentrations tended to occur in areas with higher soil pH and near sand and clay younger than 10,000 years. Older sediments have been exposed to so much water over geological time that most of their arsenic has already washed out to sea. Under specific chemical conditions, the arsenic in younger sediments can dissolve in water and contaminate it, Podgorski says.

Next, the team created the region's first risk map for arsenic, which shows the probability of dangerous concentrations in every part of the country. By estimating the number of people relying on groundwater for drinking, the team reports today in Science Advances that 50 million to 60 million people might use water that contains more than 50 micrograms per liter of arsenic, five times the WHO guideline.

"It's a reminder that arsenic remains a serious public health threat in drinking water," says Richard Johnston, a public health engineer at WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, who was not involved in the research. He hopes the predictive method can be applied to other areas of the world with similar geologies to Pakistan.

Other experts hope that the study will motivate Pakistani authorities to test wells in high-risk areas and warn communities. "People should be aware that water in their well has high arsenic," says Charles Harvey, a hydrogeologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. If people are aware of the risks, they could use water from deeper aquifers that are in contact with older sediments, or invest in treating groundwater to remove arsenic.

Peter Ravenscroft, a hydrogeologist and independent consultant based in Cambridge, U.K., says this work will help draw the attention of policymakers and aid agencies to the arsenic threat in Pakistan. "Maps like this have a big impact," he says.

doi:10.1126/science.aap7590

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Arsenic in drinking water threatens up to 60 million in Pakistan

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It has been called the largest mass poisoning in history. After wells were drilled in Bangladesh and the rest of the Indian subcontinent in the 1970s, millions of people have been exposed to arsenic in drinking water. When leached into water from surrounding rocks and soil, the metal can-at high concentrations-cause skin lesions, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodevelopmental delays.

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ST. LOUIS * One night this spring, a woman in a small brick house in north St. Louis woke up to get a drink of water.

She said the first sip burned her mouth, and the smell - like an open bottle of bleach - filled her nose.

The next morning, city Water Division workers told Pamela Randall, 55, and her husband to open the taps and flush the pipes. But she said that just made things worse.

"If you had actually come in my house, it was like someone had poured bleach all over," she said. "My eyes were literally burning."

In all, about a dozen of the residents of the Baden neighborhood, at the northern edge of the city, told a reporter that they noticed a peculiar taste or smell in their water that first week of April.

Water Division officials said they still aren't sure exactly what happened that day. A stream of superchlorinated water, they said, must have somehow escaped as they were disinfecting a main under Randall's street, McLaran Avenue, and leaked into the pipes that feed the neighborhood.

A sample taken from one house near Randall's, the city later reported to the state, contained 100 times more of the irritating chemical than normal.

But the city - deeply proud of its award-winning water, the source for Anheuser-Busch beer - did not announce the incident nor tell residents what happened.

Instead, it came to light when a former city chemist contacted the newspaper.

Water Commissioner Curt Skouby said the overchlorinated water was not dangerous.

"It was a great concern of mine," he said. "But in the end, it wasn't going to kill anybody."

Area doctors said there is little serious harm to drinking overchlorinated water. They see only a few cases each year, because the strong smell warns accidental drinkers. When they do get a patient who ingested high concentrations of chlorine - usually suicide attempts via household bleach - it rarely causes any lasting injury. And bleach contains chlorine concentrations 25,000 times stronger than typical drinking water.

"The perception is that bleach is a strong chemical," said Michael Mullins, a Washington University toxicologist and emergency room doctor at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "But in terms of injuring tissue, it's not that serious."

Still, Water Division staffers said any noticeable overchlorination is unacceptable.

"Any question, we wait and test again," network manager Terry Scheihing said. "We don't want to jeopardize our reputation but, more importantly, we would never put anyone in the public at risk."

The former city chemist, Al Bakt, whose full name is Alireza Bakhtiari, said the main in the Baden neighborhood should have been flushed with clean water for nearly a full day after it was disinfected. And before it was reconnected to the city water system, its contents should have been tested to ensure chlorine levels had dropped, he said.

Bakt said he doubts those steps were taken, and he believes that city cost-cutting moves led to the leak - and may have resulted in other cases of bad water quality.

City Chemistry Manager Jim Kopp said that the correct procedures were followed in the Baden incident.

There are two mains under McLaran. The larger one, a 30-inch pipe that carriers water across the city, was being repaired. Workers had fixed it, capped the ends and filled the main with a chlorine solution, to disinfect the pipe after the work.

When the first resident complained, that transmission main was being flushed - and was still disconnected from the water system.

But the main had a connection valve to the pipe that served the neighborhood. Kopp guesses that valve wasn't fully seated, and chlorine somehow leaked through.

"This one house got a superdose of chlorine. (We're) not going to contest that - definitely not palatable to human consumption," Kopp said. "The question we don't fully understand - and I'm not sure we're ever going to be able to - is how."

The division is proud of its water, ranked best-tasting in the country by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2007. It would never cut so much that it threatened water quality, officials said.

"We're never that poor," Skouby said.

Officials said Bakt was no longer working for the city at the time of the April event on McLaran. His last day was in March, Skouby said, after he had been indicted by a federal grand jury, accused of sending a threatening email to a local lawyer.

Moreover, hundreds of pages of Water Division correspondence, customer complaint records and testing logs, obtained by the Post-Dispatch via public records request, show no event similar to the one on McLaran.

Skouby said the division contacted the state immediately to report that incident but didn't want to alarm Baden residents. So he didn't send out any official notification.

That left residents puzzled.

Jethro Atwater, 76, a retired letter carrier, was the first to call the Water Division that day.

"There were lots of these water works people up and down here," he said. "They took it pretty seriously."

One came into his house and smelled the water. Later that day, they opened up two or three of the area fire hydrants and ran the water for hours. "They said they would get the chemicals back to the levels they should be," he said. "After a few hours, it got much better."

Sallie Johnson, 69, a retired nurse, said she couldn't drink the water at first. Some neighbors, she said, had other problems, including bouts of asthma and wheezing. After two or three days, she said, it finally dissipated.

And Randall, in her small brick home, just didn't understand why no one told them what happened.

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DAVID HUNN  dhunn@post-dispatch.com > 314-436-2239

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Water problem under investigation in St. Louis

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ST. LOUIS * One night this spring, a woman in a small brick house in north St. Louis woke up to get a drink of water. She said the first sip burned her mouth, and the smell - like an open bottle of bleach - filled her nose.

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This section of the globalissues.org web site looks at the importance of water and how we are using and wasting it. Issues such as water privatization are important in the developing world especially as it goes right to the heart of water rights, profits over people, and so on.

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - The severe drought continues across part of the state with the latest drought monitor showing 34 percent of the state under a severe drought.

With little rainfall in the forecast the drought will continue with the main concerns being fire weather danger and the potential water shortage situation across South Florida.

Lake Okeechobee's water level has rapidly decreased and although it remains above the water shortage threshold, a water shortage warning has been declared by the South Florida Water Management District.

The chairman of the South Florida Water Management District Dan O'Keefe said, "The purpose of the warning is the urge South Florida residents to voluntarily conserve more water. This effort will help your water supply last through the remainder of the dry season."

Landscape irrigation conservation measures have proven to be the most beneficial to water conservation and a recommended water table is available through their website based on location.

Periods of low humidity and windy weather will also lead to an increase in the fire danger due to the current drought situation.

There is currently a burn ban for open flames and campfires on all public land in the district.

The lake level typically continues to drop until the beginning of June, the start of the wet season. Should there be a lack of early season rainfall and the lake level continues to drop then mandatory water restrictions may go into effect.

Click here to learn more about voluntary water shortage practices.

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Water Shortage A Concern With 34% Of Florida In Severe Drought

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - The severe drought continues across part of the state with the latest drought monitor showing 34 percent of the state under a severe drought. With little rainfall in the forecast the drought will continue with the main concerns being fire weather danger and the potential water shortage situation across South Florida.

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Water is a bigger problem than people thought

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Water is a bigger problem than people thought

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The growing risk of worldwide water shortages is worse than scientists previously thought, according to a new study.

About 66 percent, which is 4 billion people, of the world's population lives without sufficient access to fresh water for at least one month of the year, according to a new paper published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

Previous studies calculated a lower number, estimating that between 1.7 and 3.1 billion people lived with moderate to severe water scarcity for at least a month out of the year.

Scientists, led by Dr. Arjen Hoekstra of the Netherlands' University of Twente, used a computer model that is both more precise and comprehensive than previous studies have used to analyze how widespread water scarcity is across the globe. Their model considers multiple variables including: climate records, population density, irrigation and industry.

"Up to now, this type of research concentrated solely on the scarcity of water on an annual basis, and had only been carried out in the largest river basins," Hoekstra said in a statement. "That paints a more rosy and misleading picture, because water scarcity occurs during the dry period of the year."

"The fact that the scarcity of water is being regarded as a global problem is confirmed by our research," Hoekstra added. "For some time now, the World Economic Forum has placed the world water crisis in the top three of global problems, alongside climate change and terrorism."

Severe water scarcity happens when consumption is twice as high as available resources, according to the study's researchers. Consequently, half of those suffering from water scarcity are in the world's two most populous countries -- India and China -- where demand is high.

High-scarcity levels are also widespread in areas with significant irrigated agriculture (like the Great Plains in the United States) or low natural availability of fresh water (like the Arabian Desert) where populations are also relatively dense, according to the study. Similar patterns exist in the south and western United States where heavily populated states like California have been in a drought for years.

The consequences of water scarcity can result in economic losses due to crop failure, limited food availability and poor business viability, and can threaten environmental biodiversity. When faced with scarcity, areas in need of water often resort to pumping groundwater, which can permanently deplete the supply.

Water shortages have also precipitated or heightened the potential for global conflicts in places like the Middle East and Africa.

" Freshwater scarcity is a major risk to the global economy, affecting four billion people directly," Hoekstra told The New York Times. "But since the remaining people in the world receive part of their food from the affected areas, it involves us all."

Despite the grim findings, the study recommends ways to reduce scarcity, such as increasing reliance on rain-fed rather than irrigated agriculture, improving the efficiency of water usage and -- perhaps the most challenging for humans -- sharing what's available. The researchers point out that for these solutions to be effective, governments, corporations and investors will need to cooperate.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated that 70 percent of the world population faces severe water scarcity for at least one month out of the year. It is about 66 percent.

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Global Water Shortage Risk Is Worse Than Scientists Thought

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The growing risk of worldwide water shortages is worse than scientists previously thought, according to a new study. About 66 percent, which is 4 billion people, of the world's population lives without sufficient access to fresh water for at least one month of the year, according to a new paper published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

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Clean, safe drinking water is scarce. Today, nearly 1 billion people in the developing world don't have access to it. Yet, we take it for granted, we waste it, and we even pay too much to drink it from little plastic bottles.

Water is the foundation of life. And still today, all around the world, far too many people spend their entire day searching for it.

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Water Scarcity in Africa | The Water Project

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Water scarcity affects more than 1 billion people on a global scale. Learn more about water scarcity, the importance of water and how your donation can help.

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Talking about different water stressed cities and what they're doing.

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In the southern reaches of Egypt, the city of Aswan is one of the hottest and sunniest in the world. Temperatures reach 41C in the summer and less than a millimetre of rain falls each year. Some years it doesn't rain at all.

Aswan may be one of the world's least rainy places, but it's not even close to being the most water-stressed city. It nestles on the east bank of the Nile, close to the Aswan High Dam and the vast Lake Nasser, one of the largest manmade lakes in the world. With a capacity of 132 cubic km, the dam serves the irrigations needs not just of Aswan, but Egypt and neighbouring Sudan as well.

Water stress - where the human or ecological demand for water is not met - is caused by a variety of factors. There's the physical scarcity of water due to lack of rainfall, the natural aridity of the area and, increasingly, changes in climate; but poor management and investment in water infrastructure, and pollution, also play their parts.

The problem affects an estimated 2.7 billion people for at least one month of every year, across every continent - and is particularly pressing in cities as the global urban population grows. At present, almost four billion people live in cities, with a further 2.5 billion expected to join them by 2050.

As the urban population grows, so too does the number of people living in settlements that are not connected to a formal piped water supply. Currently, some 860 million people live in slums around the world; their lack of access to clean water carries enormous health consequences.

As freshwater supplies dry up, many cities are engaged in a race to the bottom as they turn to groundwater - with some underground aquifers now so overexploited that water is extracted much faster than it is recharged. During the height of the recent drought in California, farms and cities were apparently drilling so deeply for groundwater that they tapped into reserves that had fallen to earth as rain 20,000 years ago.

Over the past few years, both Los Angeles and São Paulo have been hit by major droughts affecting their surrounding states. For California, 2014 and 2015 were the two hottest years in its history; in April last year, the state's Department of Water Resources found " no snow whatsoever" during its survey in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Droughts creep up and develop over a period of time. But very often they end suddenly, with a crash of flooding

Carolyn Roberts

"We get all of our water for the year through the winter months, and we hope that accumulates in reservoirs and as snowpack to draw on as a resource over the summer," says Paul Ullrich, assistant professor of regional and global climate modelling at UC Davis. "In the absence of snow pack or precipitation in winter, we turn to pumping groundwater - but it's our insurance policy, our emergency fund."

In response to the absence of snow, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, announced mandatory regulations that prohibited the watering of ornamental grass, required new homes to use drip irrigation, and directed water agencies to set up new pricing structures to maximise conservation.

In Brazil meanwhile, the main reservoir supplying São Paulo dropped to just 6% of its capacity and residents were hit with regular water rationing. Some were forced to move away to more water-reliable areas.

Droughts can last for decades, but they are temporary. "Droughts creep up and develop over a period of time, through an uncertain space - and get worse," says Carolyn Roberts of the Knowledge Transfer Network. "But very often they end suddenly, with a crash, bang and wallop of flooding."

While the droughts affecting Los Angeles and Sao Paulo - both of which are now said to be over - had a severe impact on these cities, neither can be placed among the world's most water-stressed. In Los Angeles, "after per capita use, there is twice as much water as there is in the UK even now," says Roberts.

And São Paulo? "It's not in a structurally water-scarce environment. But as the city has grown, the ability of the water management infrastructure to withstand a multi-year drought was clearly overwhelmed," says Steven Schonberger, water global practice manager at the World Bank. "It may have been one of the top water-scarce cities last year - but two or three years from now, with some significant rain, that could all turn around."

There are many cities, like Aswan, that never receive any significant rainfall. Lima is a particular concern, built on the Peruvian coast: one of the driest desert regions in the world. The city, with a population of around 8.5 million, depends mainly on the Rímac river, plus the Chillón and the Lurín. But due to such an arid climate - just one centimetre of rain falls on average each year - water supply is irregular, and a fifth of the population is cut off from the drinking-water network.

But what Lima lacks in rain, it makes up for in humidity - reaching 98% at times - and Limans are making good use of this. The Peruvians Without Water movement has built vast nets to trap the thick sea fog and mist that surrounds the coastal city for more than half the year. To date, the local grassroots organisation has erected more than 1,000 nets around Lima, gleaning between 200 and 400 litres of water a day - depending on the amount of fog. The nets won't solve Lima's water woes on their own, of course, and the city is also planning to restore a pre-Inca network of channels to make the water supply more reliable.

It doesn't rain much in the Middle East either, and nor are there many freshwater sources. Indeed, the top five countries with the lowest renewable freshwater resources per person are all in that region: Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Qatar.

Major cities in these countries - such as Kuwait City, Abu Dhabi and Doha - could certainly be considered among the world's driest. But while the Middle East doesn't have much water, it does have a great deal of wealth-generating oil - ensuring that 70% of the world's water desalination plants are found there (the majority in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain). So while parts of the Middle East might not have much natural freshwater, it is certainly investing in creating it.

Singapore, too, has limited access to freshwater relative to its population, but has found a way to create water security. Despite getting rain for an average of 178 days each year, this densely-populated island city still has only 110 cubic metres of freshwater per capita, per day.

Surrounded by sea water, Singapore does not have a hinterland from which to draw water, and instead relies on its " four national taps ": rain, imported water from Malaysia, recycled wastewater and desalinated sea water. These measures come at a huge cost, but mean that 100% of residents have access to fresh water 100% of the time.

But many less well-resourced cities struggle to manage their water supply in such a holistic way. The aquifer used by Gaza City, for example, has become partly contaminated by saltwater: when freshwater is extracted in a coastal area, seawater rushes in. Meanwhile, reservoirs and pipelines have been intermittently damaged by bombings over the decades.

Amman is also struggling to cope with changes beyond its control. Between 630,000 and 1.27 million Syrian refugees now live in the already parched nation of Jordan (it had just 92 cubic metres of freshwater per capita in 2014). While not all refugees live in Amman, a 20%-to-40% increase in the number of people drawing on water resources will add a significant strain on the system. It is hoped that the $900m water sharing agreement between Israel and Jordan, agreed in February 2015, will go some way to alleviating this added pressure.

So is the world's most water-stressed city one where all these contributing factors - natural aridity and low rainfall, poor management, increasing population and exploitation of the aquifer - converge? Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, might just be that city.

Water was scarce even before the current conflict began, made worse by an increasing population and poor water management. Just 48% of the Yemeni capital's 2.2 million inhabitants receive piped water and the rest get water through tankers, which is five-to-10 times more expensive. Around 60% of water is lost through leaks, while the cultivation of khat - a popular mild narcotic - accounts for 40% of the water drawn from the Sana'a Basin.

What's more, Sana'a draws water from the world's most over-stressed aquifer, the Arabian Aquifer System, which 60 million people in Saudi Arabia and Yemen rely on. But Yemen doesn't really have a backup plan: despite having more than 1,000 miles of coastline, the country hasn't been able to invest in desalination in the same way as its more wealthy neighbours. The conflict has only exacerbated this existing water stress, and there is evidence to show the country's water infrastructure has been targeted deliberately.

But the experts are still divided on Sana'a. While a common saying there says it will run dry in just 10 more years, Schonberger reckons people have been saying that for decades now. Only time will tell if it becomes the first capital city to run out of water.
Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook and join the discussion

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Where are the world's most water-stressed cities?

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In the southern reaches of Egypt, the city of Aswan is one of the hottest and sunniest in the world. Temperatures reach 41C in the summer and less than a millimetre of rain falls each year. Some years it doesn't rain at all.

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Our planet might be blue, but we may still be left thirsty. While almost three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered in water, less than 3 per cent of that resource is actually freshwater, of which maybe only 1 per cent is readily accessible. We depend on that 1 per cent.

Not surprisingly, the critical hundredth is in high demand. Research published in the journal Science Advances found that as many as four billion people worldwide, more than half the global population, suffer water scarcity at least one month a year.

For many, sadly, things might only get worse, before they get better. Mark Fletcher, global water leader at Arup, says: "Growing water scarcity is an overarching global problem. At least two thirds of the world's population will face 'water stress' by 2025 and the number of people affected by floods could increase by a factor of three by 2100."

In its ranking of the top five global risks of greatest concern over the next ten years, the World Economic Forum rated water crises number one, marginally higher than failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation, and significantly ahead of extreme weather and food crises. All four risks are interrelated.

Water scarcity accelerating

The effects of water scarcity are particularly severely felt in Africa, where the cost is being counted across entire economic regions. Dr Richard Munang, co-ordinator of the Africa Regional Climate Change Programme of the United Nations Environment Programme, says: "The World Bank estimates that water scarcity exacerbated by climate change could cost some regions in Africa up to 6 per cent of GDP by 2050 due to impacts on agriculture, health, and incomes. This is in addition to the very low baseline, where sub-Saharan Africa will require investments of some 2.7 per cent of GDP, or $7 billion annually, to reach goals of water and sanitation."

Alongside climate-related effects, there are two other major global megatrends accelerating impact of water scarcity worldwide - population growth and urbanisation.

More than half the world's rising population already lives in cities and that proportion is forecast to grow towards 66 per cent by 2050. This will mean more than two billion extra inhabitants needing water for drinking, washing and food preparation. The UN predicts close to 90 per cent of this increase will be concentrated in Asia and Africa.

Water stress as a result of urbanisation cuts across all climate maps and geographies. For instance, cities in Brazil, a country famous for rainforests and home to one eighth of the world's freshwater, are surprisingly experiencing drought conditions similar to those faced in Iran, known for its deserts.

São Paulo, located in the south east of Brazil and the largest megacity of the southern hemisphere, has been wrestling with the effects of the worst drought for generations. Equally, Tehran, capital of Iran, and now home to over one tenth of its population, is once again warning citizens about water rationing.

Time for change

There is good news, however. Despite desperate situations and dire forecasts, there are abundant opportunities for change.

Dr Munang, for one, is adamant both policies and proven technologies exist to mitigate against even the worst of water crises projections. With application of these known solutions, he insists the outlook remains highly optimistic for Africa. "Improved water stewardship pays high economic dividends," he says. "When governments respond to shortages by boosting efficiency and allocating even 25 per cent of water to more highly valued uses, such as more efficient agricultural practices, losses decline dramatically and for some regions may even vanish."

The value of water is now an emerging metric on the balance sheet

Key solutions include integrated technology applications combining water conservation and protection of catchments, plus improved water-use efficiency through such measures as recycling, as well as leak monitoring in distribution infrastructure to cut losses. In addition, ecosystems-based adaptation technologies that restore biodiversity are critical to enhancing riparian reserves that are the source of water.

Mr Fletcher also argues strongly that we should increasingly consider the context in which we operate, looking to be in tune with the water cycle and placing emphasis on the role of natural infrastructure in what will become bluer and greener cities. As well as natural capital, he also champions the importance of human capital and creative thinking. "Do not underestimate the need for leadership and an increasing dependence on social structures and community engagement as essential considerations to ensure greater resilience for all," he says.

What businesses need to do

Leadership and engagement on water are rapidly, if belatedly, becoming issues of importance for the business community. The value of water is now an emerging metric on the balance sheet. Head of water at global environmental reporting system CDP, Morgan Gillespy, says: "The cost of inaction on water security is getting higher every year. This year companies reported $14 billion in water-related impacts through CDP, up from $2.6 billion. Companies can no longer afford to treat water as a free and plentiful resource."

Just as happened with energy and carbon before it, water is starting to be seen as a potential performance differentiator for corporates, not just in terms of environmental impacts, but the financials of business risk and asset management.

Water is also a shared resource and companies are becoming more conscious of the local context of their abstraction and usage activities. Highlighting Ford Motor Company recycling 100 per cent of its industrial wastewater in water-scarce India, so offsetting freshwater consumption, Ms Gillespy adds: "There are signs we are on the cusp of a sea-change - companies are starting to consult and factor in wider stakeholders in water risk assessments, targets and policies.

"We are already seeing companies look outside their own walls and work collaboratively to manage water resources with governments, local communities and civil societies. And we are seeing companies work at the river-basin level, with the aim of ensuring sustainable and equitable water use for all."

The cost of inaction on water security is getting higher every year

According to CDP, there is a great opportunity to think about water as part of climate mitigation, with 24 per cent of business actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dependent on stable and secure supply. Encouragingly, it found 53 per cent of companies successfully reduced emissions via improvements to water management.

Joined-up thinking can drive change, concludes Ms Gillespy. "Understanding synergies between climate and water will be key to realising opportunities and securing our low-carbon future," she says.

Of course, having your business based in the extreme near-rainless heat of the Atacama Desert in Chile can give a certain edge to your appreciation of the worth of water, as chief executive at Neptuno Pumps, Petar Ostojic, explains: "Being located at the driest place on Earth has heavily influenced us to use our scarce and valuable resources in the most sustainable and efficient way. Furthermore, we are also at the heart of the world's biggest mining industry, which is highly intensive in the use of water and energy, motivating us to design innovative and energy-efficient pumping solutions."

According to Mr Ostojic, mining companies in Latin America generate up to 400 tons of waste metal scrap a month. By reusing and recycling this material in up to 60 per cent of its products, Neptuno can reduce its own energy consumption and carbon footprint by 70 per cent, manufacturing pumps which help the mining industry recycle up to 80 per cent of its water, with 30 per cent less energy and carbon footprint.

This kind of resource win-win-win for energy, water and waste illustrates the opportunities that still exist even in traditional sectors. It requires innovation of mind, as much as of matter.

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Worldwide water crisis is looming - Raconteur

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Our planet might be blue, but we may still be left thirsty. While almost three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered in water, less than 3 per cent of that resource is actually freshwater, of which maybe only 1 per cent is readily accessible. We depend on that 1 per cent.

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The power of water

Water connects every aspect of life. Access to safe water and sanitation can quickly turn problems into potential - empowering people with time for school and work, and contributing to improved health for women, children, and families around the world.

Today, 2.2 billion people - 1 in 4 - lack access to safe water and 3.5 billion people - 2 in 5 - lack access to a safe toilet. These are the people we empower.
Learn more about the global water crisis > Learn more about the global sanitation crisis >

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The Water Crisis: Shortage, Problems & Solutions | Water.org

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Explore the global water crisis, water shortage, and lack of water affecting billions. Learn how Water.org is tackling these water problems to transform lives.

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Although drought conditions have improved in many regions of the United States, higher than average summer temperatures and patchy rainfall over the summer has contributed to one of the worst wildfire seasons on record. There are currently at least 60 large fires burning across the country. So far this year, more than 8 million acres have been destroyed by fire, a level of devastation seen in only six other years since 1960.

It is the fourth consecutive year of drought for most of the western United States. The dry summer has raised particular concern about California, where 46% of land area is in a state of exceptional drought conditions - the worst level of drought - up slightly from the already especially bad drought level in the spring. This was the highest such share nationwide and the kind of water shortage that happens only once a century.

According to a study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), "Droughts in the U.S. Southwest and Central Plains during the last half of this century could be drier and longer than drought conditions seen in those regions in the last 1,000 years."

Based on the most recent drought levels estimated as of the week ended Sept. 1 from the U.S. Drought Monitor, 24/7 Wall St. identified the eight states with the most widespread severe to exceptional drought conditions. During periods of severe drought or extreme drought, crop or pasture losses are likely, and water shortages and restrictions are common. During times of exceptional drought, these conditions are intensified and water shortages are considered water emergencies.
MORE: 9 states with the most dangerous weather
In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Brad Rippey, agricultural meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), said, "Where people live and where the precipitation falls are two completely different areas." Consequently, states rely on a range of water sources, and water needs to be transported to meet water demands in each state.

While Great Plains states rely heavily on groundwater, the western part of the country relies more heavily on surface water, which depends on precipitation and is replenished each year primarily by the spring thaw. Snowpack levels, therefore, are very important for water supplies.

The U.S. climate is also highly variable, which means wet seasons in different parts of the country occur at different times during the year. For large swaths of the nation, the wet season is primarily in the early spring. Across the Great Plains and southward, on the other hand, the wet season typically peaks during May, June and July. In June, because of extended rainfall, the country experienced a one-year low in drought levels nationwide. Unfortunately for many of these states that experienced severe flooding during the wet season, conditions have deteriorated again. "It is a bit ironic that some of these western Gulf Coast region areas like eastern Texas had the worst flooding in at least 25 years just three months ago, but they've had hardly a drop of rain since, so they've slipped back into drought fairly quickly," Rippey said.

The ramifications of such severe drought conditions for these states and for the nation are manifold. In California alone, the drought has resulted in the loss of $900 million in crop revenue and $350 million in dairy and live stock revenue.

Beyond the economic impacts, municipal cutbacks and water restrictions have a tangible impact on individuals living in these areas. In addition, "things have gotten worse particularly in the interior," Rippey said. "They didn't get (a spring rainfall) this year - it has been very hot, very dry, on top of lack of snowpack. For that reason, we had a couple million acres burned due to wildfires across the Northwest. A really devastating wildfire season, especially for the Northwest." As of the middle of August, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington - states with the worst drought conditions in the nation - were reporting at least five large active fires each. In Montana and Washington, there are 14 fires, trailing Idaho, that are at least 16 large fires raging across the state.
MORE: America's hottest cities
On the bright side, Rippey noted that the current drought in California is approaching the level of drought experienced in the late 1970s - the last time such drought levels affected the state. This time, reservoirs are at higher levels than they were in the '70s, and water consumption is lower. It appears that people are more conscious of the situation, and there may be ways for state officials to adjust to the problem.

To identify the states running out of water, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the percentage of land area in severe to exceptional drought from the U.S. Drought Monitor as of the week ended Sept. 1. To be considered, a state needed to have at least 20% of its land area in severe to exceptional drought conditions.

These are the eight states running out of water.

With more than one-quarter of the state's land under severe drought conditions, nearly 2.8 million people in South Carolina live in drought areas. Earlier this summer, local governments encouraged several counties, including York and Lancaster, to adhere to water restriction policies.The effects of the state's dry conditions extend beyond the limits of the drought's borders. Agriculture is crucial to the South Carolina economy, and severe droughts are often responsible for crop or pasture losses. Though the worst drought conditions are confined to a stretch of land across the middle of the state, the vast majority of South Carolina is either under moderate drought conditions or is abnormally dry. Only a sliver of land along the coast and the westernmost half of Oconee County remain unaffected.
MORE: 7 countries near bankruptcy
During the past three years, most of Utah has experienced abnormally dry to extreme drought conditions. Heavy August rainfall, which increases reservoir levels for the fall and winter months, have helped mitigate drought conditions. Despite this, the drought is parching 26.8% of Utah and is affecting an estimated 2.6 million people. In severe drought conditions, where crop and pasture losses are likely, farmers are especially vulnerable. The agricultural industry, which makes up 14% of the state's economy, depends heavily on water supply and accounts for 82% of statewide water usage. Earlier this year, when statewide precipitation was just 47% of the yearly average, the USDA designated seven Utah counties as primary natural disaster areas. Farmers in the designated counties were eligible for emergency low-interest loans. Around this time, Utah's Legislature approved a bill that grants about $8 million every year to preconstruction of the Lake Powell Pipeline, infrastructure that would help the state deal with future droughts by routing water from a dam site in Arizona to reservoirs in Utah.

Over one-quarter of Montana is currently experiencing either severe or extreme drought conditions. In mid-July, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack informed Gov. Steve Bullock that 15 state counties are considered natural disaster areas due to the ongoing drought. Though the worst conditions are confined to the western third of state, the drought is affecting roughly half of the state's 1 million residents. In Butte, water usage restrictions are in effect. Households that water their lawns have to do so on certain designated days and never between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Violators can be fined and lose watering privileges altogether. Roughly a decade ago, the state's Department of Agriculture established The Hay Hotline. Still active today, the service is intended to help ranchers who lost pasture land due to wildfires that can be common in droughts.

Nearly 50% of Idaho is currently in a state of either severe or extreme drought conditions. The worst of the drought stretches along Idaho's western border and encompasses the entire northern tip of the state, from the top of Idaho County through Boundary County. Nearly 1.5 million state residents are affected by the drought. Droughts create dry conditions that increase the likelihood of wildfires. Currently, there are wildfires burning in west-central and northern Idaho that have led to the evacuation of residents and the deployment of over 1,000 firefighters. The drought in Idaho is a part of a much larger national pattern that encompasses much of the western United States. Idaho has experienced severe drought conditions every year since 2012. The state's Department of Agriculture reinitiated the Idaho Rangeland Drought Task Group last year to help drought-affected farmers take advantage of assistance provided by federal and state agencies.

Divided into arid and semi-arid climatic regions, Nevada has the driest climate of any other state in the country. Due to the state's dry conditions, laws have been put in place that prohibit new homes from planting grass in their front yards and that provide incentives for homeowners to get rid of existing lawns. However, this summer has been even drier than usual. Slightly more than 76% of Nevada is currently in a state of severe to exceptional drought conditions. Nearly 2.6 million Nevada residents live in drought areas. The Sierra Nevada Mountains and Lake Mead supply Nevada and much of the region with water. Both supplies are weak compared to historical levels. Snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada range is low because of the warm winter, and Lake Mead's water level has dropped steadily since the regional drought began.

More than 92% of California is currently in a state of severe to exceptional drought, one of the highest such shares nationwide. About 46% of the state experienced exceptional drought conditions, the worst possible drought level and by far the highest such share nationwide. By contrast, only about 3% of the nation was in a state of exceptional drought, and only one other state, Nevada, was afflicted by exceptional drought conditions.
24/7 Wall St. is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
California's current water shortage crisis is in the midst of its fourth straight year. Severe to exceptional drought conditions affected the entire state for two straight months in summer 2014. More than 36.6 million Californians live in areas affected by drought, the highest number of people living in such conditions. However, the number of people affected by the California drought may be far larger as the drought's impact can extend far beyond the state. Most of California's water usage is for agriculture, and the state generates a huge portion of the nation's food, including more than two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts. The exceptional drought conditions affecting nearly half of the state can cause widespread crop and pasture losses.

All of Washington is experiencing either severe or extreme drought conditions. The state's natural resources are also strained. In July, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife restricted fishing on more than 60 rivers and streams across the state to protect wildlife already under stress from low water flows due to the the drought and the resulting increasing water temperatures. Seattle, Washington's largest city, is notorious for its rainy weather. However, it is currently going through a severe drought after four consecutive months from the spring through summer of well below average rainfall. On the other side of the state, Spokane, Washington's second-largest city, is experiencing even worse drought conditions.

All of Oregon is currently in a state of severe to extreme drought, making it the driest state in the country. At 67.3%, a majority of the state is in extreme drought conditions, the second-largest share of any state in the country. As is the case with much of the western United States, Oregon relies on snowmelt for its water supply. This year, due to low snow precipitation, the snowpacks have been smaller than average. As a result, the contribution from the annual snowmelt to the state's water reservoirs was also below average. Many cities across the state have already asked residents to minimize water usage. Vancouver, one of the largest cities in Canada that is just north of the Washington border, is affected by the same drought system. The coastal city in British Columbia has already imposed mandatory restrictions, forbidding residents to water their lawns, refill swimming pools or wash their cars.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1UC7jYi

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It is the fourth consecutive year of drought for most of the western United States. The dry summer has raised particular concern about California, where 46% of land area is in a state of exceptional drought conditions - the worst level of drought - up slightly from the already especially bad drought level in the spring.

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It's World Water Day. Time to wake up and take shorter showers. That is, if we're fortunate enough to have them. Water scarcity and pollution are persistent global problems. According to End Water Poverty, some 663 million people around the world have absolutely no reliable access to clean, safe water year-round. And two-thirds of the world population faces water scarcity for at least one month every year.

In the wealthy US, we're facing a different kind of water crisis largely of our own making. In 2016 only 9 states reported safe lead levels in their schools' water supply. Lead and copper contamination can come from irresponsible industry, aging pipes, ineffectual water treatment plants and too little investment in our public water infrastructure.

Droughts and natural disasters can cut off access to potable and sanitary water anywhere in the world, too. Haiti is known as a "pipeless nation," still recovering from 2010's catastrophic earthquake and consequent natural disasters. In Haiti, only one-quarter of residents have access to toilets, according to the World Bank. And it's hard to believe it, but giant freshwater sources in North America like Lake Mead in Arizona or the Colorado River may not be able to keep pumping to residents' homes and businesses much longer thanks to drought and pollution.

Our daily consumption of water affects future supply, of course. Right now, according to research by WWF, wasteful irrigation systems on farms consume about 70% of the world's freshwater, over double that of any other industry. By contrast, municipal water represents a mere 8% of global use. Bad irrigation practices in farming can hurt our water in other ways, washing pollutants into rivers, streams or other freshwater ecosystems.

At TechCrunch, we're lucky to see the hopeful ways that startups, investors and other organizations are working to solve huge problems plaguing humanity with tech, including the global water crisis. Here are 12 to watch:
1. Water Is Life
The nonprofit Water is Life makes and distributes portable water filters that look like big straws. The components inside the straws are "membranes, iodized crystals and active carbon," which eliminate harmful bacteria and viruses including typhoid, cholera, E. coli, and reduce other harmful particles so people can drink safely wherever they go. Water is Life also creates educational campaigns, and even a VR game, to teach kids why and how they should clean or filter water before they drink from a potentially unsafe source.
2. charity: water
Charity: water is focused on helping people get access to clean water. Founder Scott Harrison has gotten support from the tech community throughout the years, with entrepreneurs like Sean Parker and Michael Birch involved with the organization.
3. The Human Utility: Detroit Water Project
Backed by Y Combinator, TeeSpring and the Shuttleworth Foundation, The Human Utility is helping low-income families get help paying for their water bills so their taps won't be turned off by utilities leaving them thirsty in their own homes.
4. WaterSmart
WaterSmart's software helps the water industry understand what's happening to every last drop of H2O. It aggregates and analyzes information from millions of water meters, predicts demand, and helps utilities communicate with customers about everything from leaks at home to service or rate changes. WaterSmart is making moves with a recent $7 million raise at a $21 million pre-money valuation.
5. Valor Water
Backed by Y Combinator, Valor Water helps utilities understand who is wasting and who is conserving water among their customers. With that data, they can target rate hikes at water pigs, and cut conservationists a good deal to incentivize responsible water use. The company previously competed in TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield in San Francisco.
6. TOTO
TOTO manufactures high-efficiency toilets and has been named a Water Efficiency Leader by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which lauded its sustainable manufacturing and advocacy efforts. The company's toilets clean themselves with electrolyzed water after every use. TOTO invited TechCrunch to test-drive their latest bidet-and-toilet model at CES this year, but our reporter declined since he was doing the story on camera.
7. Pluto AI
This company, which was one of our favorites from 500 Startups' 19th class, is developing an application of deep learning for water management. Pluto.ai uses data and machine learning to predict infrastructure failures and to monitor water usage. The company is striving to reduce operating costs at two of the 10 largest water companies in the world who it counts among its partners today.
8. ImagineH20
Imagine H2O is a water-focused accelerator and fund providing water entrepreneurs with "the resources, insight and visibility to launch and scale successful businesses." The company's annual water innovation prize rallies entrepreneurs to focus on solving different water-related problems with their technology. This year's winner, Utilis, uses satellite imagery and big data analytics to find leaks in underground water supplies to large, urban markets so that cities can stop them and save that water for residential use.
9. XPV Water Partners
A Toronto-based venture firm called XPV Water Partners has developed a specialization around startups in the water industry, one of the most regulated sectors in every nation. Its portfolio includes microbial monitoring tech startup LuminUltra, water reclamation and reuse venture Natural Systems Utilities, and Shenandoah Growers, a grower of organic herbs that uses 90% less water than required with traditional farming methods, but no photo-sharing or dating apps.

This nonprofit installs water filtration systems in rural communities and at schools around the world so they can have clean, safe drinking water. The systems, called Aqua Towers, trap harmful particles, and kill bacteria and viruses, providing 1,000 people with 10,000 liters of clean water per unit daily.
11. RWL Water
New York-based RWL Water builds desalination plants and wastewater treatment systems around the world. The company works to provide a power supply to customers who are in geographically remote areas but need water to power their communities and businesses. Most recently, RWL acquired a water plant in São Paulo, Brazil, a market that has been struggling to keep its residents and businesses in clean water after a two year, El Niño drought.
12. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a tour de force supporting tech to solve problems that plague humanity. The foundation's Water & Sanitation Hygiene Challenge, and Reinvent the Toilet fair award grants to organizations that improve sanitation in the developing world. According to the foundation's own research, "Better sanitation contributes to economic development, delivering up to $5 in social and economic benefits for every $1 invested through increased productivity, reduced healthcare costs, and prevention of illness, disability, and early death."

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Causes of the global water crisis and 12 companies trying to solve it

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It's World Water Day. Time to wake up and take shorter showers. That is, if we're fortunate enough to have them. Water scarcity and pollution are persistent global problems. According to End Water Poverty, some 663 million people around the world have absolutely no reliable access to clean, safe water year-round.

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This section of the globalissues.org web site looks at the importance of water and how we are using and wasting it. Issues such as water privatization are important in the developing world especially as it goes right to the heart of water rights, profits over people, and so on.

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Hurricane Maria: Water V.S.  Health safety  

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Hurricane Maria: Water V.S.  Health safety  

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LOIZA, Puerto Rico - Massive damage to Puerto Rico's water system from Hurricane Maria poses a looming health crisis for island residents exposed to contaminated water, health workers and environmentalists warn.

Doctors and nurses who traveled to Puerto Rico since the hurricane hit Sept. 20 said they treated widespread symptoms related to unclean water, ranging from vomiting and diarrhea to conjunctivitis (pink eye), scabies and asthma. At least 74 suspected cases of leptospirosis, a dangerous bacteria, have been reported, including two deaths.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday it is conducting ongoing tests on suspected leptospirosis samples.

Gov. Ricardo Rosselló's office said 82% of the island's water meters are now active, but many residents say they still have no running water or the water they have is unsafe.

Many people are still collecting water from mountain springs and creeks that run alongside roads. Some know they should boil this water, and others don't.

Puerto Rico health officials did not comment about the water and health problems.

Morovis Mayor Carmen Maldonado said that despite the governor's claims, none of the 13 neighborhoods in her city has water service, and the water utility known as AAA is not doing enough to provide it.

"The humanitarian crisis that so many speak of is what we are living daily in Morovis, while the AAA refuses to look for alternatives," Maldonado said in a statement.

"We're worried that in places even that have running water whether that water is safe," said Erik Olson, health program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

His group reported in May that Puerto Rico's water system had the worst record under the Safe Water Act, with 70% of the people living with water that violated standards set by the U.S. law.

And now the situation is worse, Olson said.

"The drinking water system in Puerto Rico was already very fragile," Olson said. "When you lose water pressure, what can happen is if there's groundwater contamination with sewage or flooding, that water can get into those pipes."

In the coastal municipality of Loiza, 20 miles east of the capital San Juan, municipal officials are providing water to 29,000 residents with tanker trucks and going house-to-house with bottled water, said Israel Morales Alicea, the town's communications adviser.

Alicea said he is not worried about a health crisis because with each delivery, municipal workers emphasize the importance of drinking bottled water.

Iricelis Ortiz, 42, said municipal officials have yet to pass through her neighborhood, so residents organized a committee to ask the city for what they need.

Ortiz worries that the bad-tasting, blue-colored water that runs in her pipes is unsafe. She and her aunt use it only to clean clothes and dishes, and to shower. They had tried boiling it, but "it tasted weird," Ortiz said.

Bottled water can be hard to find and gets expensive, said her aunt, Maria Ortiz, 66. "If you are lucky to find some, a pack of 24 water bottles that used to be $3.99 now is about $7.50," she said.

Medical workers who volunteered across the island report similar patterns of symptoms almost everywhere.

"Over the past two weeks, we've seen a continuous stream of adult and pediatric patients with gastrointestinal illness, most often involving fever, vomiting and diarrhea," said Christopher Tedeschi, an emergency medicine physician at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, who returned last Thursday from Puerto Rico. "It's hard to say the source - or more likely sources - of the illness, although contaminated food and water are very likely."

Tedeschi said his team treated more than 1,000 patients in the town of Manatí, 30 miles west of the capital. They also met with dozens of residents who either didn't have access to clean water or weren't sure if their water was safe.

"While boiling is an easy way to decontaminate water, most people I spoke to either didn't (have) electricity or cooking gas to get that done," he said.

Llamara Padró, a nurse at New York's Upstate University Hospital, who volunteered with a group of 40 nurses organized by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said they treated people with gastrointestinal symptoms and conjunctivitis. They also saw patients with scabies and asthma, which she suspected was related to sleeping in damp, moldy houses with damaged roofs.

"It's right now a public health crisis," said Padró, whose group worked in more than a dozen communities across Puerto Rico.

"They have no electricity, have no way of purifying water," Padró said. "People are using PVC pipes and collecting water that is contaminated by dead animals, sewage and leptospirosis that comes from rat feces."

The teachers' union has raised more than $300,000 to send thousands of household gravity-operated water filters and a few larger filtration pumps that run on electricity to the island. But AFT President Randi Weingarten said the effort is no substitute for a coordinated federal response.

Alicia Schwartz, a home-care nurse in New York City, described treating people with a fungus on their skin from sleeping in moldy conditions.

In the town of Orocovis, Schwartz said her group saw a resident whose uncle died from leptospirosis after collecting water from a mountain stream.

"They learned their lesson. They stopped" using water from the stream, she said.

But many others continue.

"That day we were visiting that town we had to stop numerous times, because people were collecting water from the streams on the side of the road," she said.
Dorell reported from Washington
More: Five weeks after Maria most of Puerto Rico remains an island in the dark

More: Who will rebuild Puerto Rico as young professionals leave island after Hurricane Maria?

More: Puerto Rico health system on life support two weeks after Hurricane Maria

More: Puerto Rico to cancel contract with small Montana power company

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Puerto Rico's water woes raise fears of health crisis six weeks after Hurricane Maria

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CLOSE LOIZA, Puerto Rico - Massive damage to Puerto Rico's water system from Hurricane Maria poses a looming health crisis for island residents exposed to contaminated water, health workers and environmentalists warn. Doctors and nurses who traveled to Puerto Rico since the hurricane hit Sept.

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Causes of the global water crisis and 12 companies trying to solve it

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Causes of the global water crisis and 12 companies trying to solve it

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ST. LOUIS * One night this spring, a woman in a small brick house in north St. Louis woke up to get a drink of water.

She said the first sip burned her mouth, and the smell - like an open bottle of bleach - filled her nose.

The next morning, city Water Division workers told Pamela Randall, 55, and her husband to open the taps and flush the pipes. But she said that just made things worse.

"If you had actually come in my house, it was like someone had poured bleach all over," she said. "My eyes were literally burning."

In all, about a dozen of the residents of the Baden neighborhood, at the northern edge of the city, told a reporter that they noticed a peculiar taste or smell in their water that first week of April.

Water Division officials said they still aren't sure exactly what happened that day. A stream of superchlorinated water, they said, must have somehow escaped as they were disinfecting a main under Randall's street, McLaran Avenue, and leaked into the pipes that feed the neighborhood.

A sample taken from one house near Randall's, the city later reported to the state, contained 100 times more of the irritating chemical than normal.

But the city - deeply proud of its award-winning water, the source for Anheuser-Busch beer - did not announce the incident nor tell residents what happened.

Instead, it came to light when a former city chemist contacted the newspaper.

Water Commissioner Curt Skouby said the overchlorinated water was not dangerous.

"It was a great concern of mine," he said. "But in the end, it wasn't going to kill anybody."

Area doctors said there is little serious harm to drinking overchlorinated water. They see only a few cases each year, because the strong smell warns accidental drinkers. When they do get a patient who ingested high concentrations of chlorine - usually suicide attempts via household bleach - it rarely causes any lasting injury. And bleach contains chlorine concentrations 25,000 times stronger than typical drinking water.

"The perception is that bleach is a strong chemical," said Michael Mullins, a Washington University toxicologist and emergency room doctor at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "But in terms of injuring tissue, it's not that serious."

Still, Water Division staffers said any noticeable overchlorination is unacceptable.

"Any question, we wait and test again," network manager Terry Scheihing said. "We don't want to jeopardize our reputation but, more importantly, we would never put anyone in the public at risk."

The former city chemist, Al Bakt, whose full name is Alireza Bakhtiari, said the main in the Baden neighborhood should have been flushed with clean water for nearly a full day after it was disinfected. And before it was reconnected to the city water system, its contents should have been tested to ensure chlorine levels had dropped, he said.

Bakt said he doubts those steps were taken, and he believes that city cost-cutting moves led to the leak - and may have resulted in other cases of bad water quality.

City Chemistry Manager Jim Kopp said that the correct procedures were followed in the Baden incident.

There are two mains under McLaran. The larger one, a 30-inch pipe that carriers water across the city, was being repaired. Workers had fixed it, capped the ends and filled the main with a chlorine solution, to disinfect the pipe after the work.

When the first resident complained, that transmission main was being flushed - and was still disconnected from the water system.

But the main had a connection valve to the pipe that served the neighborhood. Kopp guesses that valve wasn't fully seated, and chlorine somehow leaked through.

"This one house got a superdose of chlorine. (We're) not going to contest that - definitely not palatable to human consumption," Kopp said. "The question we don't fully understand - and I'm not sure we're ever going to be able to - is how."

The division is proud of its water, ranked best-tasting in the country by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2007. It would never cut so much that it threatened water quality, officials said.

"We're never that poor," Skouby said.

Officials said Bakt was no longer working for the city at the time of the April event on McLaran. His last day was in March, Skouby said, after he had been indicted by a federal grand jury, accused of sending a threatening email to a local lawyer.

Moreover, hundreds of pages of Water Division correspondence, customer complaint records and testing logs, obtained by the Post-Dispatch via public records request, show no event similar to the one on McLaran.

Skouby said the division contacted the state immediately to report that incident but didn't want to alarm Baden residents. So he didn't send out any official notification.

That left residents puzzled.

Jethro Atwater, 76, a retired letter carrier, was the first to call the Water Division that day.

"There were lots of these water works people up and down here," he said. "They took it pretty seriously."

One came into his house and smelled the water. Later that day, they opened up two or three of the area fire hydrants and ran the water for hours. "They said they would get the chemicals back to the levels they should be," he said. "After a few hours, it got much better."

Sallie Johnson, 69, a retired nurse, said she couldn't drink the water at first. Some neighbors, she said, had other problems, including bouts of asthma and wheezing. After two or three days, she said, it finally dissipated.

And Randall, in her small brick home, just didn't understand why no one told them what happened.

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DAVID HUNN  dhunn@post-dispatch.com > 314-436-2239

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Water problem under investigation in St. Louis

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ST. LOUIS * One night this spring, a woman in a small brick house in north St. Louis woke up to get a drink of water. She said the first sip burned her mouth, and the smell - like an open bottle of bleach - filled her nose.

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The world is currently experiencing a water crisis, where nearly 800 million people live without safe water and a further 2.5 billion people live without basic sanitation. The social, health and economic impacts of numbers as large as these affect entire communities all over the globe.

Mustafah Abdulaziz illustrates this in a photo series called ' Water Stories', where he's worked since 2011 to take photos that highlight the effects lack of water can have on people and environments. The images, taken in Brazil, China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria, highlight the challenges that humans face, as we all work towards achieving coexistence with the environment around us.

Abdualaziz said in a statement, "Water is one of the great challenges of our time. Across the planet we are seeing our fundamental relationship with water called into question... Our future depends on our understanding; water hangs in the balance."

Here are some of the images in the series.
NIGERIA
Nigeria has both the highest population and the largest economy in Africa. Of its 192 million people, around 60 million live without safe access to water and over 100 million without adequate sanitation. This contributes significantly to the poverty cycle, as isolated communities in regional areas are unable to access state-run assistance facilitated from the larger centres and capital cities.
PAKISTAN
The unstable political situation in Pakistan and the growing urbanisation of the country has prevented over 16 million of the nation's people accessing water. People who live in the Thar Desert for example, live a semi-nomadic lifestyle where they migrate every three years in search of a fresh water supply. Women also have a major role in collecting water for their families and communities on a daily basis.
BRAZIL
Brazil holds 12 percent of the world's fresh water and it's home to the world's largest river,the Amazon. Brazil has always been a country that has a vast amount of water resources, but, is now experiencing serious drought. Due to the country's bad resource management, Brazil now has enforced water rations.
CHINA
China's industry is rapidly expanding, and as it does, extra pressure will be put on the country's natural environment as well as the environments of other countries. The Yangtze River basin, which supports a third of China's population and half of their wild animals, fish and plants is a prime example of how measures of sustainability need to be implemented in the country to ensure the natural environment, the animals and humans that exist within it are protected.

INDIA
India has a population of 1.3 billion people and more than 300 million of these are living in poverty. While India has met the United Nations' 2015 Millennium Development Goal to halve the amount of people who live without safe drinking water, a massive 76 million still don't have access to a safe and regular water supply.

Abdulaziz plans to work on the 'Water Stories' project for the next 15 years to demonstrate the dynamic challenges and changes water can have on our globe.
A selection of Abdulaziz's images will be on display at the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney between August 15 and September 5. The exhibition will then move to Brisbane from September 14 to September 26.

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This Is What The Global Water Crisis Looks Like

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The world is currently experiencing a water crisis, where nearly 800 million people live without safe water and a further 2.5 billion people live without basic sanitation. The social, health and economic impacts of numbers as large as these affect entire communities all over the globe.

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Water is the driving force of all nature, Leonardo da Vinci claimed. Unfortunately for our planet, supplies are now running dry - at an alarming rate. The world's population continues to soar but that rise in numbers has not been matched by an accompanying increase in supplies of fresh water.

The consequences are proving to be profound. Across the globe, reports reveal huge areas in crisis today as reservoirs and aquifers dry up. More than a billion individuals - one in seven people on the planet - now lack access to safe drinking water.

Last week in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, home to 20 million people, and once known as the City of Drizzle,drought got so bad that residents began drilling through basement floors and car parks to try to reach groundwater. City officials warned last week that rationing of supplies was likely soon. Citizens might have access to water for only two days a week, they added.

In California, officials have revealed that the state has entered its fourth year of drought with January this year becoming the driest since meteorological records began. At the same time, per capita water use has continued to rise.

In the Middle East, swaths of countryside have been reduced to desert because of overuse of water. Iran is one of the most severely affected. Heavy overconsumption, coupled with poor rainfall, have ravaged its water resources and devastated its agricultural output. Similarly, the United Arab Emirates is now investing in desalination plants and waste water treatment units because it lacks fresh water. As crown prince General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan admitted: "For us, water is [now] more important than oil."

The global nature of the crisis is underlined in similar reports from other regions. In south Asia, for example, there have been massive losses of groundwater, which has been pumped up with reckless lack of control over the past decade. About 600 million people live on the 2,000 sq km area that extends from eastern Pakistan, across the hot dry plains of northern India and into Bangladesh, and the land is the most intensely irrigated in the world. Up to 75% of farmers rely on pumped groundwater to water their crops and water use is intensifying - at the same time that satellite images shows supplies are shrinking alarmingly.

The nature of the problem is revealed by US Geological Survey figures, which show that the total amount of fresh water on Earth comes to about 10.6m cubic km. Combined into a single droplet, this would produce a sphere with a diameter of about 272 km. However, 99% of that sphere would be made up of groundwater, much of which is not accessible. By contrast, the total volume from lakes and rivers, humanity's main source of fresh water, produces a sphere that is a mere 56 km in diameter. That little blue droplet sustains most of the people on Earth - and it is under increasing assault as the planet heats up.

Changing precipitation and melting snow and ice are already altering hydrological systems in many regions. Glaciers continue to shrink worldwide, affecting villages and towns downstream. The result, says the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, is that the fraction of global population experiencing water scarcity is destined to increase throughout the 21st century. More and more, people and nations will have to compete for resources. An international dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter's plans to dam the Nile has only recently been resolved. In future, far more serious conflicts are likely to erupt as the planet dries up.Even in high latitudes, the one region on Earth where rainfall is likely to intensify in coming years, climate change will still reduce water quality and pose risks due to a number of factors: rising temperatures; increased levels of sediments, nutrients, and pollutants triggered by heavy rainfall; and disruption of treatment facilities during floods. The world faces a water crisis that will touch every part of the globe, a point that has been stressed by Jean Chrétien, former Canadian prime minister and co-chair of the InterAction Council. "The future political impact of water scarcity may be devastating," he said. "Using water the way we have in the past simply will not sustain humanity in future."
* This article was amended on 12 March 2015 to convert certain measures from miles into kilometres.
Topics

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Why fresh water shortages will cause the next great global crisis

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Last week drought in São Paulo was so bad, residents tried drilling through basement floors for groundwater. As reservoirs dry up across the world, a billion people have no access to safe drinking water. Rationing and a battle to control supplies will follow

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It's the height of summer in Cape Town, and the southwesternmost region of South Africa is gripped by a catastrophic water shortage. Unless the city adopts widespread rationing, the government says, the taps " will be turned off " on April 22, 2018, because there will be no more water to deliver.

This would make Cape Town the first major city in the world to run out of water, according to Anthony Turton, a professor at the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State in South Africa, who spoke to the New York Times. "It's not an impending crisis-we're deep, deep, deep in crisis." The shortage is the result of a multi-year drought.

The city is asking residents to restrict their water use to 87 liters per person per day. That's roughly the equivalent of a four-minute shower using a regular shower head, or an eight-minute shower using a low-flow shower head.

Cape Town's water system isn't built to withstand a multi-year drought (nor are any city's water system), which are expected to occur "perhaps as rarely as once in a millennium," according to a group of professors from the University of Cape Town.

This particular drought won't last forever. But according to climate models, it is likely part of a trend for the Western Cape of South Africa, where climate change is expected to bring lower chances of wet years and higher chances of dry years as the century progresses, according to Piotr Wolski, a hydrologist with the Climate Systems Analysis Group. Water rationing may soon become the norm for the city of 4 million.
Sign up for the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief - the most important and interesting news from across the continent, in your inbox.

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The world's first major city to run out of water may have just over three months left

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It's the height of summer in Cape Town, and the southwesternmost region of South Africa is gripped by a catastrophic water shortage. Unless the city adopts widespread rationing, the government says, the taps "will be turned off" on April 22, 2018, because there will be no more water to deliver.

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Read Fast Facts from CNN about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

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The world is currently experiencing a water crisis, where nearly 800 million people live without safe water and a further 2.5 billion people live without basic sanitation. The social, health and economic impacts of numbers as large as these affect entire communities all over the globe.

Mustafah Abdulaziz illustrates this in a photo series called ' Water Stories', where he's worked since 2011 to take photos that highlight the effects lack of water can have on people and environments. The images, taken in Brazil, China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria, highlight the challenges that humans face, as we all work towards achieving coexistence with the environment around us.

Abdualaziz said in a statement, "Water is one of the great challenges of our time. Across the planet we are seeing our fundamental relationship with water called into question... Our future depends on our understanding; water hangs in the balance."

Here are some of the images in the series.
NIGERIA
Nigeria has both the highest population and the largest economy in Africa. Of its 192 million people, around 60 million live without safe access to water and over 100 million without adequate sanitation. This contributes significantly to the poverty cycle, as isolated communities in regional areas are unable to access state-run assistance facilitated from the larger centres and capital cities.
PAKISTAN
The unstable political situation in Pakistan and the growing urbanisation of the country has prevented over 16 million of the nation's people accessing water. People who live in the Thar Desert for example, live a semi-nomadic lifestyle where they migrate every three years in search of a fresh water supply. Women also have a major role in collecting water for their families and communities on a daily basis.
BRAZIL
Brazil holds 12 percent of the world's fresh water and it's home to the world's largest river,the Amazon. Brazil has always been a country that has a vast amount of water resources, but, is now experiencing serious drought. Due to the country's bad resource management, Brazil now has enforced water rations.
CHINA
China's industry is rapidly expanding, and as it does, extra pressure will be put on the country's natural environment as well as the environments of other countries. The Yangtze River basin, which supports a third of China's population and half of their wild animals, fish and plants is a prime example of how measures of sustainability need to be implemented in the country to ensure the natural environment, the animals and humans that exist within it are protected.

INDIA
India has a population of 1.3 billion people and more than 300 million of these are living in poverty. While India has met the United Nations' 2015 Millennium Development Goal to halve the amount of people who live without safe drinking water, a massive 76 million still don't have access to a safe and regular water supply.

Abdulaziz plans to work on the 'Water Stories' project for the next 15 years to demonstrate the dynamic challenges and changes water can have on our globe.
A selection of Abdulaziz's images will be on display at the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney between August 15 and September 5. The exhibition will then move to Brisbane from September 14 to September 26.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This Is What The Global Water Crisis Looks Like

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The world is currently experiencing a water crisis, where nearly 800 million people live without safe water and a further 2.5 billion people live without basic sanitation. The social, health and economic impacts of numbers as large as these affect entire communities all over the globe.

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Article with general facts of the global water shortage

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The growing risk of worldwide water shortages is worse than scientists previously thought, according to a new study.

About 66 percent, which is 4 billion people, of the world's population lives without sufficient access to fresh water for at least one month of the year, according to a new paper published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

Previous studies calculated a lower number, estimating that between 1.7 and 3.1 billion people lived with moderate to severe water scarcity for at least a month out of the year.

Scientists, led by Dr. Arjen Hoekstra of the Netherlands' University of Twente, used a computer model that is both more precise and comprehensive than previous studies have used to analyze how widespread water scarcity is across the globe. Their model considers multiple variables including: climate records, population density, irrigation and industry.

"Up to now, this type of research concentrated solely on the scarcity of water on an annual basis, and had only been carried out in the largest river basins," Hoekstra said in a statement. "That paints a more rosy and misleading picture, because water scarcity occurs during the dry period of the year."

"The fact that the scarcity of water is being regarded as a global problem is confirmed by our research," Hoekstra added. "For some time now, the World Economic Forum has placed the world water crisis in the top three of global problems, alongside climate change and terrorism."

Severe water scarcity happens when consumption is twice as high as available resources, according to the study's researchers. Consequently, half of those suffering from water scarcity are in the world's two most populous countries -- India and China -- where demand is high.

High-scarcity levels are also widespread in areas with significant irrigated agriculture (like the Great Plains in the United States) or low natural availability of fresh water (like the Arabian Desert) where populations are also relatively dense, according to the study. Similar patterns exist in the south and western United States where heavily populated states like California have been in a drought for years.

The consequences of water scarcity can result in economic losses due to crop failure, limited food availability and poor business viability, and can threaten environmental biodiversity. When faced with scarcity, areas in need of water often resort to pumping groundwater, which can permanently deplete the supply.

Water shortages have also precipitated or heightened the potential for global conflicts in places like the Middle East and Africa.

" Freshwater scarcity is a major risk to the global economy, affecting four billion people directly," Hoekstra told The New York Times. "But since the remaining people in the world receive part of their food from the affected areas, it involves us all."

Despite the grim findings, the study recommends ways to reduce scarcity, such as increasing reliance on rain-fed rather than irrigated agriculture, improving the efficiency of water usage and -- perhaps the most challenging for humans -- sharing what's available. The researchers point out that for these solutions to be effective, governments, corporations and investors will need to cooperate.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated that 70 percent of the world population faces severe water scarcity for at least one month out of the year. It is about 66 percent.

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Global Water Shortage Risk Is Worse Than Scientists Thought

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The growing risk of worldwide water shortages is worse than scientists previously thought, according to a new study. About 66 percent, which is 4 billion people, of the world's population lives without sufficient access to fresh water for at least one month of the year, according to a new paper published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

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Reasons A Global Water Crisis Is Approaching

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Reasons A Global Water Crisis Is Approaching

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https://etfdailynews.com/2013/03/04/30-reasons-a-global-water-crisis-is-approaching/

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What Lies Upstream,’ a Broad View of a Chemical Spill

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What Lies Upstream,’ a Broad View of a Chemical Spill

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In "What Lies Upstream," the documentarian Cullen Hoback begins by investigating the 2014 chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginians without safe tap water. The resulting movie, national in scope, lays out damning (if not always cohesive) arguments about how government regulators tend to defer to the companies they are supposed to supervise, how legislative fixes aren't permanent and how mandated safety checks are useless if they aren't performed or performed properly.

Some compelling camera personalities emerge. Randy Huffman, at the time the secretary of the State Department of Environmental Protection in West Virginia, wants to "give the benefit of the doubt" to organizations. When Mr. Hoback, who has read a report suggesting that tens of thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act went uninvestigated in the state, cites that number to him, Mr. Huffman brushes it off as "not that many."

Dr. Rahul Gupta, who begins the movie as executive director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department and becomes the state's commissioner of health and human resources, is presented as a dogged health advocate who is cowed as he rises in stature.

Throughout the movie, Mr. Hoback looks for a smoking gun - a revelation that will explain pollution not only in West Virginia, but also in Flint, Mich. and elsewhere - and seems to think he finds one. But the problems appear systemic, tied to human nature and economics.

Is "What Lies Upstream" persuasive in all respects? No. Will it make you think twice about what's gone unnoticed in your tap water? Absolutely.

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Review: 'What Lies Upstream,' a Broad View of a Chemical Spill

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In "What Lies Upstream," the documentarian Cullen Hoback begins by investigating the 2014 chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginians without safe tap water. The resulting movie, national in scope, lays out damning (if not always cohesive) arguments about how government regulators tend to defer to the companies they are supposed to supervise, how legislative fixes aren't permanent and how mandated safety checks are useless if they aren't performed or performed properly.

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A man sits by the river in Garbahaarey town in the Gedo region of Somalia. Photo by AMISOM Public Information/Flickr.

Droughts in Somalia. Water rationing in Rome. Flooding in Jakarta and Harvey-battered Houston. It doesn't take a hydrologist to realize that there is a growing global water crisis. Each August, water experts, industry innovators, and researchers gather in Stockholm for World Water Week to tackle the planet's most pressing water issues.

What are they up against this year? Here's a quick rundown on the growing global water crisis.

1) We're Changing the Climate, Making Dry Areas Drier and Precipitation More Variable and Extreme.

Climate change is warming the planet, making the world's hottest geographies even more scorching. At the same time, clouds are moving away from the equator toward the poles, due to a climate-change driven phenomenon called Hadley Cell expansion. This deprives equatorial regions like sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central America of life-giving rainwater.

Paradoxically, climate change is also increasing precipitation in other areas, and people who live near rivers and streams have the most to lose. Currently, at least 21 million people worldwide are at risk of river flooding each year. That number could increase to 54 million by 2030. All countries with the greatest exposure to river floods are least developed or developing countries - which makes them even more vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. This summer, extreme flooding submerged over a third of Bangladesh, claiming over 115 lives and affecting 5.7 million citizens.

2) More People + More Money = More Water Demand.

It's a simple equation: As populations increase and incomes grow, so does water demand. The world's population, now at 7.5 billion, is projected to add 2.3 billion more people by 2050. How can the planet satisfy their thirst? Growing incomes also exacerbate the water problem, because of the water-intensive products-like meat and energy from fossil fuels -that richer populations demand.

3) Groundwater Is Being Depleted.

About 30 percent of Earth's fresh water lies deep underground in aquifers. And it's extracted daily for farming, drinking and industrial processes - often at dangerously unsustainable rates. Nowhere is this more evident than India, which guzzles more groundwater than any other country. 54 percent of India's groundwater wells are decreasing, meaning that water is used faster than it's replenished. Unless patterns shift, in 20 years, 60 percent of India's aquifers will be in critical condition.

Unlike an incoming hurricane or a drained lake, the naked eye cannot see when groundwater reserves in aquifers are declining. Global water supplies are susceptible to this hidden and growing threat.

4) Water Infrastructure Is in a Dismal State of Disrepair.

Having enough water to go around is only the beginning. That water also needs to be transported, treated, and discharged. Around the world, water infrastructure―treatment plants, pipes, and sewer systems―is in a state of disrepair. In the United States, 6 billion gallons of treated water are lost per day from leaky pipes alone. Built infrastructure is notoriously expensive to install and repair, meaning that many localities ignore growing infrastructure issues until disaster strikes, as it did in California earlier this year.

5) And Natural Infrastructure Is Being Ignored.

Heavy machinery removing trees in Ecuador. Flickr/CIFOR

Healthy ecosystems are " natural infrastructure" and vital to clean, plentiful water. They filter pollutants, buffer against floods and storms, and regulate water supply. Plants and trees are essential for replenishing groundwater; without them, rainfall will slide across dry land, instead of seeping into the soil. Loss of vegetation from deforestation, overgrazing and urbanization is limiting our natural infrastructure and the benefits that it provides. Forested watersheds around the world are under threat: watersheds have lost up to 22 percent of their forests in the past 14 years.

6) Water Is Wasted.

Although it's true that water is a renewable resource, it's often wasted. Inefficient practices like flood irrigation and water-intensive wet cooling at thermal power plants use more water than necessary. What's more, as we pollute our available water at an alarming rate, we also fail to treat it. About 80 percent of the world's wastewater is discharged back into nature without further treatment or reuse. In many countries, it's cheaper to receive clean drinking water than to treat and dispose of wastewater, which encourages water waste. This brings us to the next issue:

7) The Price Is Wrong.

Globally, water is seriously undervalued. Its price does not reflect the true, total cost of service, from its transport via infrastructure to its treatment and disposal. This has led to misallocation of water, and a lack of investments in infrastructure and new water technologies that use water more efficiently. After all, why would a company or government invest in expensive water-saving technologies, when water is cheaper than the technology in question? When the price of receiving clean water is closer to its actual service cost, efficient water use will be incentivized. And on the flip side, the poor often end up paying disproportionately high prices for water, stunting development.

It's Not Too Late

Amidst these seven deadly water sins, there is good news: governments, businesses, universities and citizens around the world are waking up to water challenges, and beginning to take action. Each year brings more solutions - like using wastewater for energy, using restoration to bring water back to dry topographies, and monitoring groundwater levels more closely. However, even the best solutions will not implement themselves. Along with fresh water, political will and public pressure are critical resources in ensuring a sustainable future for all.

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7 Reasons We're Facing a Global Water Crisis

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Droughts in Somalia. Water rationing in Rome. Flooding in Jakarta and Harvey-battered Houston. It doesn't take a hydrologist to realize that there is a growing global water crisis. Each August, water experts, industry innovators, and researchers gather in Stockholm for World Water Week to tackle the planet's most pressing water issues.

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The privatisation of state water companies around the world almost always has one common denominator: it is made ​​under the pressure of international lenders in countries with large debt or under the pressure of multinational corporations and politicians in countries with a strong economy.

The dominant argument is that the state takes too long to provide the necessary services which are deemed ineffective; in reality, however, the countries that have applied this doctrine were led to the creation of a powerful private monopoly where acquisitions and mergers shattered any sense of competition and hope for reduced tariffs.

From the beginning of 1980s until 2000, there was a huge pressure from international financial institutions and multinational corporations to privatise public water companies. The result was that 5 major corporations, Veolia, Suez, Agbar, RWE and Saur, held 71% of the global water market in 2001. But the reaction of citizens, led to renationalisation of the networks. Today, large corporations own only 34% of the market while 90% of the 400 largest cities in the world still have a public water network. In 2011 only 12% of the water on a global scale was in private hands. Privatisation has now taken the form of investment in hard technology and purchase of water rights.
But what has happened in countries where the network was privatised?
Argentina was one of the first countries to privatise the water network. In 1993 the government gave the municipal water supply in a consortium of multinational and local companies. The World Bank rushed to congratulate Argentina´s move, describing it as the most promising investment. But the joy did not last long. Companies placed their friends in key positions of the government paying them huge salaries, which led to imposing high tariffs that affected millions of poor. In many cases companies increased their profits by reducing maintenance costs and did not replace old pipes, thus the water flooded the poorest neighbourhoods. With the economic crisis that followed, consumers could no longer pay for their water bills in 2005, the corporations Suez and Aguas de Barcelona withdrew from the program. The government renationalised the network whose damages were so severe that it had to be restored from scratch.

In South Africa, the privatisation of water supply resulted in one of the worst cholera epidemics in the poor neighbourhoods of Johannesburg in 2000-2002. The outbreak started when residents of slams were disconnected from the private water supply because they could not pay their increased bills. Without safe sanitation and no access to clean water, residents were forced to drink water from contaminated rivers. The cholera epidemic resulted in more than 100,000 people becoming ill and at least 100 losing their lives. The government reacted vigorously and forced the private companies to provide at least 25 litters of water per day to every resident during the epidemic. While companies had strongly protested against this decision they complied but continued to disconnect the water for the poor.

In Africa, perhaps the most striking privatisation case is that of Tanzania. In 2003 the country was forced by the World Bank and the IMF to immediately privatise their outdated and inefficient public water supply network in exchange for loans. Since nobody wanted to invest in the market of Tanzania and the IMF exerted increasing pressure, the country was forced to sell off the network to the British company Biwater. The irony of the decision was that the Tanzanian government had to participate in the financing of the investment with Biwater, using the same loans that were given by the IMF and the World Bank in exchange for the privatisation. Within a year of the advent of Biwater, consumers saw their water bills tripling while the poorest got disconnected from the main water supply. In fact, 98% of the network served the wealthy few, leaving millions of people without water. The company made no investment which was against the agreement and accused the government of giving false evidence and claimed that the investment was unprofitable. Tanzania finally renationalised the water network and expelled Biwater from the country. Biwater then led Tanzania to court but lost the lawsuit in 2008 and was forced to pay 3 million pounds to the government in compensation.

The selling of the water supply network in the capital of the Philippines, Manila, was regarded as the most ambitious and "successful" privatisation experiment. In 1997 the government faced financial trouble and after following the World Bank's advice decided that, in order to fill the financial gaps, water must be sold. The network was already in poor condition and 4 out of the 11 million inhabitants had no connection. The network was divided into two zones and was given to a consortium of companies (among them was Bretchel, known by the subsequent invasion in Iraq). During the first years prices were reduced by half and connections reached 87% of residents, due to competition. As of 2001, however, the situation changed dramatically. Prices went up 500% compared to 1997 levels and the average family spent 10% of its income on water bills. About 40% of the bill was not related to consumption but to illegal charges. In 2003 more than 800 people were affected by a cholera epidemic in the network, caused by poor maintenance of piping and non-repair of leaks.

In 2008 in France, the city of Paris decided not to renew the contract with the companies Veolia and Suez who owned the network since 1985, and to assign the water system to the municipality. In 2010 the municipal company Eau de Paris was founded and the city managed to save 35 million euros per year while reducing the tariffs by 8%.

In Germany, water agencies are owned by the public sector everywhere except in Berlin while the Netherlands in 2004 declared by law the participation of any private agency in water services as illegal.

Thus, while privatisation of water has failed and there is a strong tendency worldwide towards renationalisation, the European Commission requires the selling of water supply as a condition for the financial bailout of Greece and Portugal. The Greek government and its supporters, regardless of the consequences, fully endorsed the legislation on privatisation, including the water supply network.

Who will pay the actual cost remains to be seen.
An earlier version of this article appeared in Greek as a part of a larger civil initiative to prevent the privatization of state water company by the Greek government and it was translated in English by Yannis Fanourakis

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When Water Is for Sale: What Water Privatisation Really Means

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The privatisation of state water companies around the world almost always has one common denominator: it is made ​​under the pressure of international lenders in countries with large debt or under the pressure of multinational corporations and politicians in countries with a strong economy.

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Global—any country NOT the US or its territories

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Global—any country NOT the US or its territories

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Title first, location, link