How we get there

As with any precious resource, the best way to deal with a shortage is to conserve clean water by using less of it. Not only does it save on the resource and money, but it also saves the time, energy, money, and materials needed to build and maintain any of the systems that are currently being proposed to deal with the issue.

If you want to see what your personal water footprint is, check out Waterfootprint.org. You'll notice that a huge amount of your clean, drinkable water usage is based on your diet. To learn more about this, check out the Eat Less Meat section. You can also click over to the Do Things section for more suggestions on how to help get more clean water to those that need it.

Getting More Water

It is unlikely that conservation alone is going to deal with our water needs, so we are going to need to rely on polluting less of our water to keep it in the cycle of water we can use and will also probably be looking at more desalination. Unfortunately, our technologies that we use for this tend to be expensive and energy intensive.

New research will need to go into finding new membranes for Reverse Osmosis plants that rely on pushing water through membranes to remove salt. There will also need to be a greater utilization of solar distillation systems that rely on the sun's energy. In addition, distillation systems that rely on boiling water could be combined with other processes that already produce high temperature waste water.

Cleaning Water

Systems for cleaning water involve filtering, distilling, pushing it through membranes, adding chemicals, and irradiating the water. These systems all obviously have some equipment and energy costs. The goal of many groups throughout the world is to find ways to reduce these barriers and to actually get the systems setup in the areas that need them the most. The only way more people are going to get clean water is when water stops being polluted and when systems for cleaning water become more prevalent. It is for this reason that many are calling for the declaration that water become recognized as a basic human right.