For water to be available and plentiful in the 21st century, Gleick recommended the following:
- Smart use of rainwater, all sorts of innovative rainwater harvesting programs are going on around the world
- Locate new technologies, like the salvation and advanced treatment to turn the quality of water that we couldn’t previously use into a quality of water that we can use
- The best water projects in Africa are the projects where the community is involved from the very beginning, primarily women, in what kind of water system they want, and how it is going to be managed by the community
- We have to look aggressively at the way we use water. Can we do what we want to do with less water?
Ironically, the United States uses less water than it did twenty years ago, even though the population has grown.
When the talk was finished, the audience asked which NGOs working on water were worth our donations. Garcetti moved into the microphone to answer this question.
“The NGOs do not give the money to any government officials any place that I know of. They hire people from other countries. They monitor that money. That money is as carefully guarded as you’ll ever find any place in the world. The key is the money never goes to the government. We’ll work with them. If they don’t want us, fine. We’ll move elsewhere. And that’s the key.”
Related story: The Real Cost of Bottled Water
