How to Solve the Looming Water Crisis

Brad Plumer provides insights into the current state of water infrastructure in the United States and around the world by sharing the work of author David Sedlak, the director of the Institute for Environmental and Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Plumer argues that cities around the United States about to face "a fourth major water crisis," following crises during the Roman Empire,  the Industrial Revolution, and the United States in the 1970s.

Sedlak identifies three pressures on current water infrastructure precipitating the next crisis:

• "First, when we built all this water infrastructure, we didn't think hard enough about creating a system to fund its upkeep, maintenance, and replacement. We had a federal grant system to build these treatment plants, but needed to set aside money to rebuild them."
• "Many sewer systems are becoming overloaded" 
• "Water scarcity in drought-prone areas"

Sedlak admits that there is no silver bullet to addressing the looking crisis, but also argues that the first obstacle to overcome in finding long term solutions is to convince policy makers to invest in the water infrastructure before it's too late.