Book details a new model for sharing water
From the American Southwest to the Middle East, water is a highly contested resource: Many neighboring nations, and several states in the United States, have fought decades-long battles to control water supplies. And that need for water only seems likely to increase. “Out in the world, there’s growing demand for fresh water, especially where there is urban development,” says Larry Susskind, the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. “At the same time, climate change is altering in unexpected ways how much water there is. So you have increasing pressures on water supplies and thus battles over how water will be allocated.” Many of these disputes seem extremely difficult to solve. How, for example, can Israel and its neighbors share scarce water supplies? How can there be enough water to supply both populous Southern California and fast-growing Arizona? Such problems are virtually...