Can We Innovate Our Way Out of an Impending Water Crisis?

Water, particularly in the Western United States, has always been inextricably linked to the economy. Historical investments in infrastructure like the Hoover Dam and the California Aqueducts have been used to create whole new industries and the communities to support them. 

WaterStart was created in 2013 in response to
 two of the biggest global events to impact
 Nevada: the financial downturn and climate change.

However, today these communities are under serious pressure from rapidly growing populations, dwindling federal investments in new infrastructure and the impacts of climate change via 18 years of ongoing drought.

For most Americans, water is something we “solved” a long time ago. “Water crisis? That’s like the California Drought, lead pipes in Flint Michigan or the dams breaking in New Orleans, right?”

Few of us would think of the Great Recession as a water crisis. Yet for communities trying to respond to more than a decade of drought while their tax base evaporates, many utility operators and city officials were — and are — in crisis management mode. Further loss of revenue caused by mandatory conservation has only exacerbated the situation.

Read the Medium story by Nate Allen - “Can We Innovate Our Way Out of an Impending Water Crisis?”