Water Wars: The Coming Water Crisis

After completing my book, Dry Run: Preventing the Next Urban Water Crisis in 2010, I wanted to take the research from the book and put it into a format that would reach a large number of people. As a keynote speaker, I’ve been presenting the book in a talk called “Cool Water: Preventing Urban Water Crises.”

But I wanted to do more. So I began working with Tucson-based media consultant and community arts activist Jodi Netzer to develop a series of three short videos that describe the danger of upcoming water shortages and water wars throughout the world, and then show you personal water conservation actions, through sustainable green building design, and how to be a water activist in your town or city.

Water conflicts are likely to increase worldwide as population growth, limited water supplies and growing urbanization collide. Water conflicts are a close proxy for human history. There is a new dispute between Argentina and Uruguay about diversions by Argentina from the river that defines their common border. This is going on worldwide, even if it’s below the radar.

In this first video, I discuss solutions for how to conserve water and what we can do to prevent the next urban water crisis wherever we live. The current severe Midwest drought is part of an expected future for the U.S. as climate change-related changes in temperature, water supply, soil moisture, winter precipitation and stream flows begin to show up with increasing rapidity. The good news: water conservation, water reuse and more efficient agricultural practices and even the Internet are helping to stretch water supplies in the US, even as we expect to add another 100 million people over the next 40 to 50 years.

Jerry Yudelson is principal of Yudelson Associates, a strategic green marketing and project consultancy. One of the original class of LEED Fellows, Jerry is the author of 12 books in the green building space. His next book, The World’s Greenest Buildings: Promise vs. Performance in Sustainable Design, is due out in the Winter of 2013 from Routledge Taylor & Francis (London).

image: Giovanni Orlando via Flickr cc (some rights reserved)