United States Water Crisis
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in 4 people worldwide do not have access to clean drinkable water. In the United States alone, many Americans have increasing difficulty in getting the most accessible water source: surface water. For example, major rivers and sources of surface water like the Colorado river and Lake Mead have become more vulnerable, due to depletion, pollution and climate change. For years, experts have predicted that, unless water overuse is controlled, the Colorado River would no longer be able to support all of the 40 million people who depend on it. Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure on the Colorado River, supplying fresh water to 4 states: Nevada, California, Arizona and New Mexico. The reservoir has started to decline since the year 2000 because of droughts. In 2015 the lake was only 40% full.
Use the Slider to View Lake Mead from the year 2000 to the year 2022. The lake has lost about 70%* of water volume according to some measures.
With decreasing surface water supply, groundwater becomes the next source of drinkable water. But if more water is pumped than replenished, the effects of groundwater depletion is devastating and results in a domino effect: salinization of ground water can lead to an escalating scarcity of available fresh water supply, and much more resources will have to be used to obtain harder-to-reach fresh groundwater. Homeowners in the US also face the challenge of aging water-supply infrastructure that will need to be replaced or renovated. Decreasing fresh water supply and rising cost of obtaining and maintaining this supply, together, will place extra financial burden on homeowners. Our innovation aims to mitigate this burden.
*~68% according to NIDIS | NOAA
since it is 32% storage capacity in 2025