Solving the world’s water problems
OCT 05, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024717
Nature : If current trends continue, global annual water usage will increase 40% more than can be provided by available water supplies. Thus writes Nature‘s Natasha Gilbert as a prelude to her interview with Colin Chartres, director of the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka. Chartres and his fellow researchers at the institute believe, however, that the crisis can be averted: by collecting better data on how much water there is and on how demand and supply are changing, by altering current irrigation methods—agriculture uses about 7090% of the annual water demand for many countries—and by recycling waste water. Chartres has recently published a book on the topic, Out of Water: From Abundance to Scarcity and How to Solve the World’s Water Problems (FT Press, 2010).
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
