Thirsty Planet

"Aquifers under Beijing, Delhi, Bangkok, and dozens of other rapidly growing urban areas are drying up. The rivers Ganges, Jordan, Nile, and Yangtze - all dwindle to a trickle for much of the year. In the former Soviet Union, the Aral Sea has shrunk to a quarter of its former size, leaving behind a salt-crusted waste."

"Water has been a serious issue in the developing world for so long that dire reports of shortages in Cairo or Karachi barely register. But the scarcity of freshwater is no longer a problem restricted to poor countries. Shortages are reaching crisis proportions in even the most highly developed regions, and they're quickly becoming commonplace in our own backyard, from the bleached-white bathtub ring around the Southwest's half-empty Lake Mead to the parched state of Georgia, where the governor prays for rain. Crops are collapsing, groundwater is disappearing, rivers are failing to reach the sea. Call it peak water, the point at which the renewable supply is forever outstripped by unquenchable demand."

"Even economically advanced regions face unavoidable pressures - on their industrial output, the quality of life in their cities, their food supply. Wired visited three such areas: the American Southwest, southeastern England, and southeastern Australia. The difficulties these places face today are harbingers of the dawning era of peak water, and their struggles to find solutions offer a glimpse of the challenge ahead."