Approaches to Sustainable Management of Global Water Resources

[Music]

welcome to the Water Resources podcast I

am your host richet scandin from the

Bureau of economic geology at the

University of Texas at Austin this

podcast is produced in partnership with

the National Academy of Engineering in

this podcast we discuss water challenges

with leading experts I would like to

welcome Brian RoR uh to the podcast

today thank you so much for joining us

Brian it's great to be With You Bridget

uh so Brian is the president of

sustainable Waters which is a global

organization focused on water scarcity

challenges and he promotes sustainable

water use and management with

governments corporations universities

and local communities and prior to that

uh Brian served as the Director of the

global Water program of The Nature

Conservancy so that's where he gets a

lot of his examples from uh his time

then so Brian has published numerous

books including chasing water a guide

for moving from scarcity to

sustainability and I really enjoyed

reading that and I would encourage

anybody to to pick it up because it's a

chalk full of really cool examples and

and very U presentable material um his

website is uh sustainable waters.org is

an excellent resource for people and he

sends out a Blog um every so often and

on different topics that he's working on

so uh today Brian I thought we could

start with talking about your recent

work that was published in uh nature

Communications uh on the Colorado River

water and uh where you talk about the

detailed water counting in the river and

then you've done so much work on

environmental flows I think it would be

great to to discuss those a little and

then what I really like about your work

is that you emphasize Solutions a lot uh

to various sustainability challenges so

I think we will end up talking about

different types of solutions so first uh

maybe let's talk about the Colorado

River paper that you published recently

um I mean that was a lot of work a lot

of coating data and and pulling it all

together developing new data and all of

that I'm wondering was there many

surprises when you did that work and and

it seemed like there was a lot of media

attention to the work and uh what did

you Garner from from the media what were

they most interested in oh well you know

I I want to start by saying that um I

felt so fortunate Bridget to bring

together such an incredibly talented

team of disciplinary Specialists and we

couldn't have put together all the

different facets of the of the water

accounting for the Colorado River

without having people that that you know

knew how to you knew how to access data

sets and run models you know of

different sorts

so um big shout out thank you once again

to all of them you mentioned the media

um gosh I think that in all of my long

career 30 plus years of publishing

papers and reports and all I've never

had the kind of media attention that we

got from this one and I think there was

a couple of things about it um certainly

that were you know that caught

everybody's attention um certainly it

was that the Colorado River in and we're

speaking of the Colorado River in the

southwest not to be confused with

Texas's Colorado River of

course um but the Colorado River in the

southwest has been in such a crisis now

for a long time almost going on 20 plus

years and everybody's worried about

running out of water and so there was

already heightened

attention um around the the river but I

think the really the really um unique

thing that we were able to do with that

paper was we were able to account for

all of the river's water which had not

been done before remarkably so for your

listeners who don't know the Colorado

River gets consumed in its entirety

before it reaches its natural Delta in

Mexico in the Gulf of

California so it's somewhat shocking

that nobody had had put together the a

whole comprehensive complete story about

where all that water

goes and so that was that was an

important contribution and um some of

the things

weren't too novel by that I mean that

everybody knew that irrigated

agriculture consumes The Lion Share of

the water and it's a little over

50% um for the Colorado

River uh

and so only less than 20% is going to

all cities and industries and then the

other two big parts of that of that

Rivers piie is uh Reservoir

evaporation which people sometimes

include when they're doing the

accounting for the river and sometimes

don't but it's you know it's another

little more than 10% I think it was

11% and then the really um the the part

that made me very happy that we were

able to include was

the water that gets taken up by the

natural

environment and so all along these

rivers and streams throughout the

Colorado River Basin there are there is

vegetation adjacent to the river what we

call riparian vegetation and Wetland

vegetation and to be honest we got lucky

that another group of researchers had

just developed a very detailed complete

map of all of that

vegetation and so what we were left to

do is to calculate how much water was

that vegetation using and it turns out

it's about 19% so almost a fifth of the

Colorado River water goes to supporting

nature in essence and we thought that

was really important we were really

happy that we can include it because we

wanted to bring nature front and center

into the conversations about the

Colorado River and its

future um so I I mentioned one couple

other things I'll mention Bridget that I

think you know attracted some media

attention one was that

um you know in those numbers uh

basically the irrigated farming uses

about three times the amount of water

used in all the cities and industries so

that surprises a lot of people they

don't realize as you and I know that so

much water is going to that irrigated

farming embedded within that agriculture

so I said about 52% is going to

agriculture 30 a third 32% of the river

goes to two crops um Alfalfa and grass

hay which we lump together as cattle

feed crops and so a lot of the headlines

that came out of this story were about

you

know uh how much of the river is going

to feed cows uh for for dairy and for

beef

production right I mean you know

sometimes you hear people say um you

know turn off the fucil when you're

brushing your teeth to save water and

serve water and and then they don't

think about I mean the elephant in the

room is is what are you eating

exactly what is the water footprint of

that we know the water footprint of beef

and uh is very high uh but then the

other aspect of water footprint

calculations is that often times it

doesn't consider where the water is

coming from so if was plenty of water to

support um the dairy and beef production

maybe wouldn't be so problematic but

inar regions and and this uh the your

recent Colorado work follows on your

previous work where you talked about all

of the alala that's been grown in the

western Us in these semiarid

regions and so maybe you want to comment

a little bit on that Brian well um you

know one of thefor so yes so Al Alpha is

turning out to be by far and way the

most dominant water user in all of the

western United

States and um it's something on the

order of a well pretty similar to the

Colorado River it's about a third of of

the water um is going to those cattle

feed crops across the

west and that boast surprises and I

think um disturbs or angers you know

some people um and my quick retort to

that Bridget is look don't be blaming

the farmers because they're growing what

we want to eat and what we're willing to

pay for it's a it's a simple business

decision on their part um in some places

like the higher elevations of the

Colorado River Basin you don't have a

lot of options you can't you know

there's there's only a handful of crops

that you can feasibly grow up in those

higher elevations cold

temperatures and so when a farmer is

thinking about what he's going to put in

his field they're they're thinking about

you know what can I make the most profit

off of and Alfalfa turns out to be a

pretty handy crop uh for that reason and

another interesting thing that we've

discovered in our last couple of papers

Bridget is

that yes so so so it it shocks people

that we're growing a water intensive

crop in a water scarce

region and the expl and that the

production of alphalpha is actually

going up not

down and so I I dug into that recently

to really understand that a little bit

more well it turns out that so we use

alphalpha for both beef production and

for dairy production feeding

cows and beef production uction has

remained pretty stable Americans eat an

awful lot of beef four times more than

the global average but um but it hasn't

changed a whole lot what's really

driving the increases in growing

Alfalfa is

dairy and in particular it's yogurt and

cheese and so you know so I try to bring

it back home when when people get you

know when people start

to get all upset or start to bling

Farmers about growing alala I said well

how's your yogurt you know hey what do

you think about that

cheese yeah uh it's hard for people to

own things sometimes but you know so you

compare that alala Al falfa is very

flexible sometimes they could have in in

favorable climates they could have five

or six cuting a year so if they don't

have enough water for a short period of

time or a shortterm drought they can

readily adapt and and not grow it for

that particular time and contrast that I

was talking recently with Claudia font

in the Central Valley they grow a lot of

almonds and fruit trees and nut trees

and and takes five years for those to

develop and they can't follow them so

they buy the water and use the water

even during dry periods you know and so

they've hardened their demand uh so I

mean there's no free lunch it's

difficult to to understand all of the

tradeoffs and these different things and

sometimes you know people say it takes a

gap to grow an almond in California and

you know maybe be better to eat beef

from Nebraska or or maybe chicken

or it's difficult to to say or maybe

coconut yogurt or whatever right but

then what is that what is that doing you

know what impact is that having so it's

difficult to understand all of these uh

different

tradeoffs um and you know for the

Colorado then I mean it's very Timely

has a lot of the Agreements are up for

NE renegotiation in

2026 and so the Bureau of Reclamation

and other groups are all looking at uh

what they should develop in the future

and you summarize very nicely the

progression from the compact in the

1920s which was a wet period and they

probably overallocated the water um 7

and a half million acre feet in the

upper Basin and seven and a half eight

and a half in the southern Basin and

then the Mexico allocation and stuff

like that so you know what has your work

helped you know you to uh um inform some

of those groups you know going forward I

see decision making under deep

uncertainty there's a lot of climate

uncertainty there's the warming and

increasing evaporation so it's a really

difficult time but it's important to

understand the water accounting I think

that's very helpful

yes

well the um you know a lot of people are

are hopeful that something magical is

going to happen in those negotiations

and I I hate to be one to throw a wet

towel on those expectations but

um the way that we've been managing the

Colorado River and it looks like the way

that we're going to continue to to

manage the

river is in a very reactive way Bridget

so what I mean by that is

literally each year by

year

um there are forecasts made of how much

water is going to be coming down through

the river system how much water is going

to be available for use and depending

upon those forecasts and depending

upon what level the big reservoirs are

at we're talking about Lake me and Lake

Powell the two biggest reservoirs in the

United States depending upon where their

water levels at and how much we think

we're going to get um in the in the

spring and the

summer they decide how much water

various users are going to to be cut

back that they're going to have to

reduce their use it's a mandated

use and so you're always just reacting

year by year and those cuts fall on

different types of of users in different

states mostly in Arizona presently but

eventually in Nevada and California and

then perhaps also in what we call the

upper Basin Colorado Wyoming Utah New

Mexico

so you know it's all about you know how

much water you release out of one

reservoir or the other and and how much

you know people are going to get cut off

what I would love to see Bridget is

something akin to what Texas has done

with water planting and by the way I

used Texas's water planning process as

as an example in my chasing water book

and basically the idea is that you plan

for the future you know the Texas water

plans are developed with a 50-year

horizon and they're updated every 5

years that's quite admirable and the

reason I'm so bullish on that kind of an

approach is is that um we're looking at

a very challenging

future and we need to make some

long-term decisions about how we're

going to allocate or reallocate the

water we know it's a lot less than the

original allocation back a hundred years

ago in the Colorado River

compact so they're going to have to

reallocate in to some degree

and and I think then it's necessary to

decide how are we going to live under

those lower levels of water

allocation if there's less water

available how are we going to do that

and how are we going to do that in a

sustainable and

ecologically um healthy manner leaving

enough water in the river systems so I

think it's way overdue for the Colorado

River managers to to develop if not a

50-year plan at least something like a

20 or a 30-year plan um so that people

can anticipate what the future's going

to be like so that they can draw take

some security in knowing that their

water managers have a plan for how we're

going to be living in the next couple of

decades um and and that plan of course

needs to also take into serious account

the fact that uh we're going to have

less and less water in the coming

decades because of climate change right

and so um it's you're right it's nice to

have a plan and and California is

developing sustainable groundwater

management Act is forcing them to move

towards more sustainable management um

by

2040 um through all and a little bit

like Texas bottomup approach um and so

you know you mentioned the sectoral

water uses earlier you mentioned like um

Urban Industrial and Commercial is like

20 % uh so big towns like Phoenix uh you

know and then agriculture being more

than 50% so it seems like maybe there

will be some water movement from

agriculture to the urban areas and um do

you think uh that that will help or you

know you you you one thing that you

wrote about um recently was um urban

areas their water use is kind of

decreased even though the population has

increased maybe you can describe how

they accomplished that and then going

forward then how do you think uh these

different sectors are going to interact

to uh to divide up the water I mean you

you said Arizona would be possibly the

most impacted because their water rights

are junior to California so California

gets 4.4 million acre feet from the 7

and a half in the in the lower Basin and

um and Arizona has Jun your water rights

so maybe you can describe the urban

water use and what's been happening with

that and then what you see uh between

urban and um rur irrigated areas you bet

yes so we we uh published a paper last

year that looked very closely at water

being used by cities that are dependent

upon the Colorado River and it was a

startling

conclusion um across all of those cities

on average they had grown by

24% uh which Texans are are familiar

with what that feels like um for a lot

of your big

cities uh that's that's a a very very

rapid rate of growth of course um that

was by the way that was over two decades

24% over two decades so 2000 to

2020 yet on average they were able to

reduce their total water use by 18

% so it wasn't just that they held their

water use stable as their populations

grew but somehow miraculously they were

able to actually lower it and I

shouldn't say really miraculously it's

um the biggest the biggest Factor

was

um was was changing um how much water we

use outside of our homes and businesses

so moving away from Green Grass la BS

that require you know being irrigated

you know every other day or something

like that um a lot of these big cities

in the west now are financially

incentivizing or legislatively

requiring their their residents to rip

out their green grass Lawns and plant

some you know native vegetation drought

tolerant you know whatever you want to

call it Zer

escaping um but far less water demand in

vegetation so when you think about the

fact that it's common for Western cities

to use 50 or 60% of their total water

use within the city being

outdoors um focusing on trying to reduce

that outdoor water use is a really

really smart strategy so that's where

most of the gains came from but there's

other things that we continue to to make

progress on um replacing old toilets

um gosh Bridget when when I was a kid

the toilets would flush six gallons of

water with every flush and now they

flush 1.2 gallons so if you can if you

can encourage those homeowners and the

older homes that still have those water

guzzling toilets and get them replaced

with a more efficient toilet it makes a

big difference in some cities it's been

20 to 30% water reduction just because

of replacing toilets and other old water

fixtures

so that's really important and and

that's really good news

because in the Colorado River as well as

many of the other places that you and I

are quite familiar with Bridget you

mentioned the Central Valley of

California um the Great Salt Lake which

has been you know in the headlines for

being under serious water trouble right

now um all of these places are going to

have to substantially reduce their total

water use

to bring their water budget back into

balance in other words getting their use

of water down to the level of what the

reliable supplies

are and so there has to be a reduction

so the fact that

cities

are being able to accomplish that for

the most part is very very good

news the same kind of progress is

desperately needed in the agricultural

sector and again because irrigated

agriculture is such a big it's it's the

dominant water user in the west and so

if we're going to you know resolve this

overdraft in our water budget we're

going to have to see very substantial

reductions in irrigated

agriculture now you mention also the um

the exchanges of water between irrigated

Agriculture and cities so now that I've

talked about

both um

it's um it has been a strategy for

cities for decades now we've seen a lot

of transactions or trades where a city

and I'll use the example of U my

hometown I grew up in San Diego

California they made a deal with the

largest Irrigation District in the

country which is in the lower col

depends upon the lower Colorado River

and they said um if you're willing

to conserve and not use some portion of

your water rights and instead send it

over to us in San Diego we'll pay you

handsomely for it and that's been a real

Boon for San Diego it now makes up more

than a third of their water supply is

coming from the farmers that used to use

it in the Imperial Irrigation

District the the the thing to bear in

mind about those trades so in terms of

you know meeting high value high

priority water

needs Urban residential drinking water

manufacturing industrial those kinds of

things which really are the Mainstay of

of our economies in order to to provide

water to those urban

areas

um one strategy of course is to do that

kind of a trade with the agricultural uh

water users but that doesn't necessarily

reduce the the amount of water being

used and so I think that's important to

understand you're just moving it from

one type of use to another there's no

less water in total being used from the

Imperial Irrigation District it's just

now that something like a a quarter to a

third of it is going to San Diego

instead um but those kinds of those

kinds of Trades are going to are going

to continue to be more and more

important um particularly as we're

grappling with the challenge es of

climate change which is

reducing um the amount of river coming

the amount of water coming down a lot of

our rivers and I think you know we've

heard recently about Investors

purchasing land near Phoenix and stuff

and then selling that water to a distant

um U municipality or developer or

whatever developing area so I think

that's been happening uh and as the

cities expand you know they you have the

natural conversion of egg to Urban and

as you mentioned Urban uses less so that

that expansion has probably reduced

water use a and so if these trades and

marketing and conversions can happen and

actually reduce the water use also that

would be uh very helpful um a lot of

your work Brian you mentioned earlier

with about environmental flows um in the

Colorado and 20 % um going to Wetlands

and riparian vegetation adjacent to the

river so uh trying to figure out how

much uh water you need to leave in the

river to uh have a healthy ecosystem how

do you come up with those

numbers terrific question Bridget uh and

and one that scientists who work on

those issues have been grappling with

again for decades um and you know some

of the earliest work was done way back

in the 19 50s and the concept back then

Bridget was uh it was referred to as

minimum instream flow what's the minimum

amount of water you know you need to

make sure it's trickling down the river

but we've learned a lot ecologically you

know since that time and so really in

the

1990s and early 2000s was a real

burgeoning era of environmental flow

science where a number of us started

making the case that it wasn't just the

minimum instream flows that are

necessary to support healthy

ecosystems um but you know you need an

occasional um high pulse of water coming

through the river sometimes you need a

pretty good

flood um and and we've been able to

articulate been able to explain all the

many ecological processes and functions

and benefits that come when you have um

more variety more variable flows that

even might bear some semblance to what

the you know histor long-term ago

historical flows might have been

so there have been quite literally

hundreds of different tools that have

been developed to estimate how much and

I'm going to use this term now because

it's more commonly referred to as

environmental flows rather than instream

flows uh

there's been a lot of different tools

and methods and approaches used for for

doing those

estimations um but often times uh I'm

deeply involved in one right now in the

in the Rio Grand River in New

Mexico and we're we're thinking about um

in each segment of the river we're

thinking about you know three or four or

five what we call indicator species and

talking through what is that speci need

to

reproduce um to grow um to not die and U

and we're coming up with some pretty

pretty um nice I would say pretty

elaborate recommendations for the

specific flows that are that are

necessary to keep those ecosystems

healthy now the big problem that we've

had to address over the last couple of

decades Bridget

is those kinds of assessments are are

pretty timec consuming and end up being

pretty

costly and so for the vast majority I

would Hazard to guess maybe 95% or

greater of all the rivers and streams in

the world haven't had that kind of

assessment done and aren't likely to in

the foreseeable future so we had to come

up with some stop Gap recommendations

and they aren't applicable everywhere

but um we basically after looking at um

the site specific studies the detailed

studies that have been done in different

parts of the world we came up with what

we called a presumptive

standard it was you know what assumption

can you safely make um about how much

water can be removed um without harming

you

know substantially harming the

ecosystem and there it's a very

conservative numbers so if you're

seeking a very high degree of ecological

protection you might only be able to

take something on the order of 10% of

the river's volume or

flow if you looking for a more moderate

level still good still great but but a

little bit more relaxed it's something

on the order of

20% and so

clearly those presumptions that those

rules of thumb aren't going to work in a

river where you've already lost 80% of

the river right they're not going to

work in the Colorado River so in the

Colorado River you have no choice um

other than to do those detailed careful

studies species by

species um you know how much of a of a

river flood is necessary to move

sediment and gravel through the system

or to flush the fine material from the

gravel so that you know aquatic insects

can Thrive you know all these are

they're Myriad things in any river

system that we that we take into

consideration um by the way including

recreational use um that's been a part

of a lot of these environmental flow

assessments is what kind of water level

do you need during a certain time of the

year for somebody to be able to float a

canoe or a kayak down it um I was I was

also kind of a kind of an in very

interesting anecdote is I was involved

in environmental flow assessment in

India where I think a lot of your

listeners will know that um one popular

form of of burial if you will is to

place the the deceased body on a wooden

raft and light it on fire and and uh you

know it drifts down the river and and

emulates the body and and the raft

included well during times of the year

when um a lot of that is going on it it

clearly introduces a lot of um a lot of

material pollutants into the river that

you that you wouldn't want to have in

order to have healthy water quality and

so we actually had to come up with a

recommendation as to how much water

needed to be going down Rivers like the

ganes um in order to be able to dilute

uh those pollutants that were coming

from that activity so I think this

illustrates the the variety of things

that we try to think about we right and

so uh I mean some of the ways then that

you described that you can achieve these

environmental flows could be um changing

the the outflow from reservoirs and

stuff like that at different times and

it's nice that you emphasize it's not

just low flows uh sometimes you need uh

high pulse flows and Mark wiel at the

water development board here in Texas it

does a lot of work on environmental

flows and uh and so when we're trying to

find out how much storm water could we

take from some of these rivers to

support manage do for recharge you know

we go through what they say they need

for environmental flows you know pulse

Flows at this time and and that sort of

thing and then we figure out what's left

and we're looking at the high flow so

the pulse flows are the things that

would impact that the most so uh it's

can be quite complicated but then I was

talking to Jung holu in from China

recently and he did some analysis in

North China and he thought that the 10

or 20% that you were suggesting uh uh

you know there they found that they

could take maybe 50 to 60% of the flow

in the rivers that they were looking at

so I think it's quite a variable and so

maybe War more um more analysis and as

you say if the river is already depleted

it's it's going to be tougher yes well

and by the way I'm going to be quick to

point out or to say um to again give

praise to um Texas is blessed to have

some of the best environmental flow

scientists um you know that I that I've

worked with anywhere in the world um

honestly and um the Texas agencies you

know through what was called Senate Bill

two and Senate Bill three uh from some

years ago um you know provided funding

and a mandate to do these kinds of

Assessments on on the Texas rivers and

streams and so um Texas deserves a lot

of credit for paying attention to these

issues um you know you raise a great

Point Bridget that um you know that's

why I was careful to say that you know

the presumptive standard of protecting

you know of of only developing or using

10 to 20% of the water that's for river

systems are really presently very

lightly touched and it's also the

presumptive standard we were very clear

about this would only be something that

you would want want to

apply as a stop Gap when you when you

weren't able to do the more elaborate

studies so it's a it's a placeholder

right but I wanted to also illustrate

your point that you know sometimes a

little change in the current water

conditions and the current river flow

conditions can make a big deal let me

tell you the quick story about um the

YSA river in China you reminded me of

that uh we did an environmental flow

assessment below three gorgees Dam and

brought in you know 50 or 60 Chinese

scientists into a workshop and the

highest priority for

them was to try to

revive the populations of four species

of carp fish which are incredibly

important they're the primary source of

protein for people living in the yanki

river valley for tens of millions of

people but once three gorgeous Dam had

gone in the way that they were releasing

water from that from that

Reservoir um wasn't suitable for those

carp to reproduce and so these

biologists said you

know these fish respond in the spring

they said a very specific time window um

they respond when the river goes through

an Abrupt rise doesn't have to last very

long maybe only you know 10 days but if

they experience that that abrupt rise

they they spawn like crazy and we worked

with the managers of the three gorgees

Dam got them to incorporate that and Bam

all of a sudden we had these carp

reproducing again so these are great

stories it doesn't always require a

wholesale change in the way water's been

managed sometimes we just look at what

simple changes can we do now which ones

should we work toward over the next

couple of years and which ones are kind

of you know we need to put on kind of on

the on the you know on the on the

frontier of the future that we're you

know maybe someday we'll be able to

recover this part right well that's

that's fascinating and I I do remember

seeing um some of the museums there they

had those fish and and and describing

what some of the issues were and I did

visit the Three Gorges is a pretty cool

area what amazed me is you know you can

have all these Farms on the sides of the

The Gorge and and and they just um uh

cultivat small plots of land and it just

blows your mind you know they cultivate

every inch every inch that's absolutely

right it's it's quite impressive even

when you get up into the mountainous

areas on the teres right it's just the

remarkable they really use their land

you know to to to to um pretty

extensively right right um you mentioned

earlier about current concerns about um

uh Salt Lake and and Utah and I think

you're doing some work there so do you

see uh you know what's the situation

there what does it look like or what are

the big issues in that system yeah well

um what's what's happening there is um

cing through many of the river systems

and aquifers again in the Western United

States and it's this phenomena Bridget

that um we allow

the local populations to

become so dependent upon the available

water supplies that it got to the point

where we we were using every drop I told

that story about the Colorado River

earlier we use every single gallon of

water flowing down that river system um

same is true in the rivers that feed the

Great Salt

Lake and so you're maxing out you know

you're using every bit of the available

water and then climate change comes

along and climate change starts to

because of climate warming it starts to

reduce how much water is coming down

those rivers that feed the Great Salt

Lake or that recharge the Central Valley

aquifers or that you know feed the

Colorado River and and it's and it's

it's come on with

surprising rapidity surprising swiftness

that um a lot of these places have

already lost already 10 you know N9 or

10 9% in the Great Salt Lake the science

say 10% in the Colorado River Basin so

we've already experienced these losses

in water and the Really frightening

thing is they're saying you know twice

or three times that much you know going

forward into the coming decades out to

mid-century so in the Great Salt Lake

the the consequence of this is that the

lake has been shrinking

um you know over you know over decades

the Great Salt Lake has lost two-thirds

of its

volume um and half of its aerial

extent and um it's stunning I mean we

think that the consequences in the

Colorado River are big you know drinking

water supply for 40 million

people um in the Great Salt Lake there

are two things that I'll mention that

are just

you know

mindboggling one is that all of that

exposed area around the perimeter of the

lake is loaded with really really

fine particulate matter we call it dust

very fine Sands finer than fine

sand um and

also some toxic um some some toxic

materials metals from industry in

particular that had drained into the

lake and now they're sitting out there

Exposed on these Salt Flats on these on

these exposed old lake bed where the

lake used to

be um when the winds kick up it blows

that it's very that dust is very very

easily transported and it blows it right

in the direction of Salt Lake City and

so now you've got two million people

exposed to really frightening health

hazards I mean the the the the health

hazards from you know asthma you know

and other lung problems um all kinds of

things that really really can do a lot

of damage

physiologically so that's one

consequence that they they are really

really freaked out about the other one I

just learned about as we started to

really dive in is it turns out that the

Great Salt Lake is something like three

to five times saltier than the ocean

because there's no Outlet to the Great

Salt Lake so those rivers flow in it's a

big pond and whatever salts are in the

water coming in they just get

concentrated in that big in that big

puddle and so the lake has gotten to be

has historically always been three to

five times more salty than ocean water

that means not a whole lot of things can

live in it um but one thing that does

live in it and very important

economically are brine shrimp they call

them brine shrimp they're they're little

kind of baby tiny shrimp it turns out

that their eggs are

harvested and dried and then shipped

literally all over the world to feed

aquaculture

Farms so half of the world seafood comes

out of aquaculture these days and so you

know all kinds of fish but particularly

shrimp um and things like that are being

grown in in these aquaculture ponds

Farms and it turns out that the Great

Salt Lake

supports at least a

fifth of all of that aquaculture because

of these brine shrimp eggs that are

being sent all over the place and it

supports half of all of the shrimp

consumption in the United States so if

they don't save this Lake if they can't

turn this around if they can't stabilize

it and begin to refill it you got a

human health disaster and you've got um

a phenomenal impact on a very important

food source for all of for all of

humanity yeah that that's incredible um

and uh when you um mentioned that I mean

um I do I remember being in China one

time and um and a lot of people you know

because of dust winds and dust in

Northwest China and stuff like that a

lot of people wear masks mask all the

time you know and I thought the funniest

thing that I ever saw was at a train

station one time this guy was wearing a

mask and then H he took it down to have

his

cigarette so you think about the health

little irony or hypocrisy or whatever in

there huh yeah all right so I would like

to get back get to your book on H

chasing water because I I I thoroughly

enjoyed it um because you um presented

very logical where you use an analogy

with a bank account you know and and

deposits and withdrawals and things like

that and then in the solution scape you

describe what you can do then uh to try

to resolve spatial and temporal

disconnects between supply and demand H

and then because of your um you know

work with the T the nature conservancy

and running the global program you have

some fantastic examples from all over

the world so so maybe

uh describe a little bit about you know

the analogy with a bank account and

trying to understand our water budgets

and then what we can do then H to

resolve some of the issues that we have

great great yes and and thanks for

thanks for bringing that up and uh the

book came out in 2014 but so it's a

decade old now um I should have

celebrated its birthday recently I guess

but um time to write another one time

there you go

um so yeah so one of the most so we've

both given you know so many lectures and

presentations on water in our careers

right and for me

Bridget what I think the most common

question that got asked of

me um particularly if I didn't explain

this very well during during my

presentation is people would say you've

been talking about people running out of

water and I don't understand how that

happens because don't we still have the

same amount of water on our planet as

we've always had and

so what I came to understand what I

talked about in my book is that we're

taught about the global Water Cycle

right water is constantly being

recirculated and evaporating off fresh

you know fresh moisture evaporating off

of the great you know oceans and going

up into clouds and moving across cross

the landscape and and coming down as

rain or snow anyway um and so that was

really really hard for people to

understand and I said um okay but you so

I have to tell my students um forget

about that for a minute forget about

that Global Water Cycle for a minute

because what's important to

you is not how much water's available in

the

world you're not going to be able to tap

the Congo River Africa for your water

needs you know in your home um instead

the water that's available to you is

what is close enough to be

accessible at an affordable price okay

so so that that kind of drives what our

local water account is and so I

scratched my head for a while to come up

with okay so what metaphor in our other

the rest of our daily lives um Can Can

we relate this to to and I and I in the

book I came up with the with the bank

account with the checking

account and I said um when you think

about your local water account and of

course it's shared by other members of

your local community um so all of the

users of water from that particular

local account it's your local River or

your local groundwater aquifer those are

the water accounts I'm talking

about um if you are using water meaning

writing checks f faster than you're

making

deposits um which is recharge of an

aquifer replenishment of a river then

what happens to your

account it goes down right you're

spending more than your than your

depositing well your bank balance goes

down um and that's what happens with our

water accounts the the groundwater oer

level Goes Down the River dries up the

lake dries up or shrinks you know in the

case of the Great Salt Lake and so

that's that's basically you know it's it

doesn't need to be any more complicated

than that in order for people to just

grasp that's how we run out of water

that's what we call water scarcity water

scarcity um is

not a pure reflection of aridity of

having you know low levels of rainfall

it's the relationship between how much

water is being replenished and how much

you're using and so if if you're using

all of that available water or close to

it you're in a you're in a condition of

water scarcity

so um by the way I've recently started

to use more often I start using the

metaphor of and maybe this will work for

some of your listeners even better um of

a

bathtub so um you got a bathtub faucet

coming in you got a drain going out if

the drain's going out faster than the

faucet is coming in then the level of

your bathtub goes down so so use

whatever is easier for for your metal

picture there um so yes so I in the book

I tried to to outline as simply as I

could before we started recording I I

said to Bridget that uh you know I tried

to write the book in a way that my

parents could understand it so every

sentence was kind of a test for me it's

like well Mom and Dad understand what

I'm saying here so I tried to write in

very simple clear plain terms um I

talked

about um the different ways that we

access

water um in other words how how how for

our when I said our water supply or our

available water you know um what

influences that or or how does you know

how do we access that and it's sometimes

like you know well you stick a pip pipe

in the river you stick a a well down in

the

groundwater um it may be that you build

a reservoir to capture water during a

wet season so that you've got some water

left over for the dry season um it may

be that you import water that you stick

your you know you stick your reach out

and um into a you know perhaps you know

miles tens of miles in some places on

the planet it's now a thousand miles

away and you and you pull water into

your local water

account um various things people are

desalting ocean water and desalting

salty ground water to make it uh

suitably fresh so I talk about you know

these ways that that

we access and build our local water

supplies and then um and then you

mentioned and then I you know it's very

very important to

me um I I've come to be frustrated over

the over the term of my career that so

much of science is documenting the

demise of the world and not enough of it

posing what the available Solutions are

are or what the logical

Solutions um policies might be and so in

the book um I lay out seven

sustainability principles which are you

know uh rules to live

by um and by the way one of the most

important ones is be as conservative as

you possibly can and and invest in water

conservation

programs um but then um then I tell a

lot of stories um as your suggesting

about how um various strategies have

been deployed in order to

either uh further build your water

supply or in my mind more importantly

reduce how much water your community or

your farming area

needs right um you know I I used the

same analogy many years ago I was trying

to get funding from the World Bank and

so I was talking to bunch of economists

and so the only thing I could think of

was a bank account maybe some of the

young people these days don't really

understand what a bank account is or

what a check a check

is so maybe the bathtub but I'm not sure

they take baths

either so it's getting more and more

difficult to community you mean my debit

card um but uh but it's it's a nice way

to present the the because I mean it's

easy for us to understand deposits and

withdrawals so input and output and then

what you're left with is the balance or

the change in storage so how can you

what sort of solutions can you have you

mentioned conservation reduce demand uh

reduce the outputs and so you were

talking about the cities doing that with

the changing their uh outdor watering

and irrigation irrigating Lawns trying

to forget that they're not living in the

UK okay and it's actually the semier

Southwest yes um and then um increasing

supplies you know um I don't know

Wastewater reuse store water capture um

uh

diesel um San Diego I think do do they

have diesel I think or they they

recently within the last 10 years they

built the largest desalination plant in

North America yeah right so so you know

San Diego is a good example where

they're where they're using I call the

different ways of of you know balancing

your water budget as tools in the

toolbox and and U San Diego is is kind

of a standout they're they're really

have a very Diversified water portfolio

where they're deploying all of those

strategies right and then the temporal

disconnects between floods and droughts

like we're seeing more and more of these

climate streames so trying to store

water from the period of excess to uh

the the drought periods and um I think

traditionally we've stored it in surface

reservoirs but now we're looking more

and more at depleted

aquafers and Lenny kanako estimated that

about we've got about 1,000 cubic

kilometers or 1,00 close to 1,000

million acre feet of storage space that

we have depleted in the past and so

that's a reservoir that we could uh

partially refill uh through managed op

for recharge and I think the sustainable

groundwater management act in California

uh is targeting that approach in

different ways um and then you mentioned

transporting water uh you know I guess

the big you know California's done that

North to South State and uh Federal

projects and and China more recently

with the south to North Water transfers

but you've got a wealth of examples you

know from South America from India and

from all of your travels in Africa and

stuff and so it's a delightful book and

I would encourage the readers uh because

it's a he wrote it for his parents so

you know anybody can understand it and I

think it's really well put together and

uh very helpful and and you're right you

get tired of hearing all about we're in

deep trouble but uh trying to figure out

potential Solutions I think is is very

important and uh to try to explain those

to people so I mean you know what are

your thoughts about the future there's a

lot happening are you optimistic uh

about the future um I mean I think you

know your detailed water counting of the

Colorado we need those data in order to

make uh we need to understand the

problems and how things are happening

right now if we want to make appropriate

Solutions so data availability has been

increasing in people pulling data

together harmonizing data and satellites

and all that sort of thing so I'm

wondering what your thoughts are uh you

know going forward

yes um I was chuckling a little bit

under my breath there Bridget because um

I oftentimes get asked by my friends

they said

um aren't you pessimistic you know

aren't you afraid of what the future is

going to be for water you know we're

running out of water everywhere and the

climate's changing and you know and in

this sort of thing

and my response and it's it's it's an

honest one is I remain optimistic

because we presently manage our water so

poorly which me which means that we have

a lot of room for

improvement and that margin of

improvement can can get us out of

trouble in an awful lot of places um you

know I mentioned that you know it's it's

it's a it's almost weird to me

that um right now in in many of the

water

stressed uh places in the world where

they're experiencing water

shortages it's a difference of 20% they

need to reduce their water use by 20%

well you think about it if you you know

if you're not using really really

careful conservative efficient water use

practices you can easily make up that

much and maybe even more to to be to

start building a buffer into the you

know into a changing climate future um

so I am very optimistic about that uh

and I think it's I think it's

both the

adaptability um of human behaviors you

know that we are capable of

change um unfortunately it takes a

pretty bad crisis but but we are capable

of it when we're got our backs against

the wall um and you mentioned the

technological advances you know that

applies to both the science where we're

understanding things so much better so

much more accurately but also um you

know things like the Technologies of um

of

desalination of safely being able to

recycle our our waste water you know

after we've used it um being able to

capture the storm water the water that's

running off the streets and the

roofs um and used to just get you know

run into our rivers and and cause

unnatural flooding in our rivers and now

we're learning how to capture some

portion of storm water and putting it as

you said Bridget putting it underground

storing it in aquifers so we don't have

to build a big reservoir on the surface

that that comes with its own Associated

environmental problems in most cases so

yes I think there's I think there's a

lot of there's a lot of room for

improvement otherwise I have to tell you

I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing and I

would just throw up my arms and give up

right I think uh you know that's

interesting what you say about uh

there's a buffer there because we're

we're doing so poorly at the moment with

management and so that gives us a buffer

to improve the situation I think the

analogy could be like if you were

already dieting yourself to death and

you're still trying to lose more weight

you know there wouldn't be much buffer

but uh but we've got a lot of buffer

there and so uh so that's good and and I

think as we move forward uh you know we

will have to be cognizant of the

solutions that we propose and and uh the

energy requirements of those and the

greenhouse gas

implications and also the impacts on

food production because as you said

early on uh irrigated agriculture is the

the dominant user and so uh food

security um and energy implications all

of those sorts of things um well I

really appreciate your time today uh

Brian and uh I encourage the listeners

to to read your book and also many of

the papers that you have been publishing

recently uh trying to Enlighten us on on

the different issues and and harmonizing

so much data and bringing new data to

the front thank you so much for your

time I really enjoyed it Bridget and

thank you for the excellent questions it

was a great conversation