Water for All: Challenges of a Changing Climate

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: As we see in the news headlines and in our own neighborhoods, water crises are more frequent and increasingly severe. And the world's approach to providing the water that grows food, sustains cities, and supports healthy ecosystems fails to meet the demands of growing population and the challenges brought on by climate change.

[00:00:24] But the grim news reports of empty reservoirs, withering crops, failing ecosystems need not be cause for despair, argues award-winning author David Sedlak, who is with us today. So stay with us. 

[00:00:40] In Water for All, Global Solutions for a Changing Climate, just published by Yale University Press, Sedlak identifies the challenges society faces, including ineffective policies and outdated infrastructure, and the many tools at our disposal. He offers an informed and hopeful approach for changing the way water is managed so we can create a future with clean, abundant, and affordable water for all.

[00:01:11] Sedlak is the Plato-Malazimov, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California Berkeley and director of the Berkeley Water Center. He's the author of the award-Winning Water, Four-Point-O, the Past, present, and Future of the World's Most Vital Resource. Hey David, thanks so much for joining us today.

[00:01:37] Your book starts off discussing the six separate water crises that exist today. David, how about telling us about that? 

[00:01:46] David Sedlak: Okay, when we hear the term water crisis, it really means different things to different people, and it's more of a question of where you're coming from that determines what a water crisis is.

[00:01:58] Sure. And so to make things a little easier for people to understand, I broke up the water crises into six separate water crises. And as we see, the reason that I've chosen to break them up this way is that the institutions, the responses, the ability to pay really depends upon where you are and what your water crisis is, so breaking right into them, the first three water crises are crises of water supply or drinking water, and I break them down as water for the wealthy, water for the many, and water for the unconnected. By wealthy, the approximately 1 billion people who live in the wealthiest countries on earth. That would be North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and pockets of wealthy people living in cities that have been developed.

[00:02:50] Then at the very bottom I have water for the unconnected, which is close to a billion people who don't have a source of piped water coming into their homes. And they often have to walk great distances to get water. And in between water for the many refers to the approximately 6 billion people around the world who might have piped water coming into their homes or might have it accessible, a short distance from where they live, but that water might not be flowing twenty-four hours a day. It might not be affordable to them, and it might not be safe to drink.

[00:03:24] Bob Gatty: Did you say, oh, sorry, go on. Excuse me. Did you say that a billion people do not have piped water into their homes?

[00:03:33] David Sedlak: It depends on, how we classify it. The United Nations talks about having access to improved water supplies. Yeah. And that, that's in the approximately six to 800 million people who don't have an improved water supply. So that could be that they either have an open or they get their water from a stream or river and, or they walk more than than an hour or two to get water every day. So that's what we talk about. And then we also talk in the same breath, usually about people who don't have access to improved sanitation. So that might be people who are still using a communal pit latrine or just answering the call of nature wherever they can find a place.

[00:04:12] Bob Gatty: It's hard to believe that is the case today in so many places around the world. 

[00:04:17] David Sedlak: Really, is it tracks very closely to people who are defined as living in extreme poverty, the equivalent of $2 or less a day of income. And when you think about that, you can imagine that you might not have an improved water supply if all you earn is $2 a day.

[00:04:32] Bob Gatty: Yeah, that's for sure. Okay, so you mentioned three three of the six water crises. Yes. What are the other three? 

[00:04:41] David Sedlak: So the other three have to do with other uses of water. The fourth crisis is water that's safe to drink, and I chose to break that out from the three different water quantity crises because the water quality crisis transcends your economic status.

[00:04:58] And if you're a wealthy person, you might be exposed to chemicals like PFAS, the forever chemicals in your water supply, or you might have lead or arsenic in your water supply. And if you are a poor person, you might also be exposed to things like arsenic or fluoride or some sort of chemical contaminant from industry.

[00:05:19] And so the way we deal with those problems of safe water that's free of chemicals that can make people sick is a separate crisis. And then the fifth crisis is water to grow food. The main source of water that we take outta the environment is the water that we use to irrigate our crops. Over half of the crops that are grown on irrigated land, but the remainder and a sizable fraction of the food that we grow is grown on rain-fed land, but the way we manage that land determines how much food we can grow with the water that falls on it. And finally, the last water crisis is the crisis of water for the environment, because when we take water out of the environment, when we use, and then subsequently dispose of water, we can pollute water supply.

[00:06:07] So we either, starve water ecosystems of the water they need to survive. Or if we don't manage the waste we produce, we pollute them to a point that puts 'em under stress and causes them to reach a state of crisis. 

[00:06:23] Bob Gatty: David those are six big things and I was gonna ask you what the solutions are, but I would imagine that the solutions are different for each one of those crises that you refer to? 

[00:06:36] David Sedlak: The solutions are the main topic of the book, right? To jump into it a little bit. Yeah. It's true that every one of those crises has a slightly different solution and every place that experiences those crises will take a different path to a solution. I think the best way to think about it is that we have at our disposal policy solutions and political solutions.

[00:07:02] We have technological solutions and infrastructure solutions, and oftentimes there's a lot of similarities between the policies that we might use to solve a water problem. For example, water scarcity in cities and water scarcity for agriculture can often be solved by addressing water rights and how people claim water or problems facing us in terms of water quality are often solved by very similar technologies, just used in different ways. So for example you might be familiar with the fact that wealthy people use solar panels to generate electricity for their homes. And people living in poverty often use solar panels to generate electricity, to do things like charge cell phones or provide them with lights at night.

[00:07:53] And similar things can be seen with water technologies. So for example. The reverse osmosis membranes that are at the heart of modern seawater desalination plants. Are very similar to the reverse osmosis membranes that people in low-income countries often use in water kiosks to take unsafe water and make it safe to drink, and that it's sold to them by a small nonprofit that is responsible for operating reverse osmosis membranes.

[00:08:23] So even though the problems are different, and the exact details of how we solve them are different, there are many Commonalities in the approaches we can use to solving problems.

[00:08:35] Bob Gatty: What can be learned from the communities that have experienced water crises and the actions that they've taken.

[00:08:41] David Sedlak: So one of the things that I think becomes evident as you look around the world is that there are always places that are on the front lines of water crises. Yeah. There's always some place that has experiences stress sooner or runs against some kind of limitation or experiences contamination sooner. And they are the places, they're the laboratories for innovation, where people experiment on solving those problems, and because they experiment on them, some of the experiments fail, some of the experiments succeed, and it's important to pay attention to them because those successes point us in the direction of broader technologies that can be exported all around the world.

[00:09:29] Bob Gatty: Okay. Now you talk about the wealthy and their ability to cope with water shortages. You touched a little bit about those less fortunate, like the urban poor and those in rural communities, but what do you see as the way that the world can change the way things are so that these folks are able to have affordable, clean, healthy water.

[00:09:58] David Sedlak: It's a big question and a lot of people have been trying to solve this problem of water for the unconnected for several generations now. Yeah. And there seem to be two main approaches that are gaining traction. The first approach is the kind of thing that's done by. Non governmental organizations and charities.

[00:10:20] And so you could see like through the activity of organizations like the Gates Foundation, which is developing technologies and testing them for providing people with small, modular sanitation systems that allow them to solve the public health problem of not having access to sanitation.

[00:10:41] Or you can see in organizations like Water.org, a non-governmental organization that's pioneered some microloan approaches ways in which, well-intentioned groups from the outside can use a relatively modest amount of money to help people develop the capacity and the financial ability to solve water crisis specifically.

[00:11:06] The other approach that is bearing fruit is just the. Impacts of global development and the transition out of poverty. So when we look around the world the number of people living in extreme poverty today is still huge. It's a bit of an embarrassment for the world, but it's smaller than it was 20 or 30 years ago, and it's smaller than, and that's smaller than it was 20 or 30 years before that.

[00:11:32] And as countries make the transition out of poverty, more and more people become wealthy enough to afford improved water supplies and water treatment. So it's those two things. Well-targeted strategic investments from outside groups and economic development that helps many people climb out of poverty, and as they climb out of poverty, water security and healthier water come with it.

[00:11:59] Bob Gatty: Okay. So you say that emerging technologies can unlock untapped water resources without damaging the environment, right? 

[00:12:09] David Sedlak: Oh, depending on how we use them there, there are a number of of technologies that have the ability to unlock sources of water that otherwise would be undrinkable.

[00:12:22] Bob Gatty: Okay. What are some of the ideas that you have to expand conventional and unconventional water sources, and what are some of the most promising ideas, do you think? 

[00:12:35] David Sedlak: So by conventional water sources, we're talking about our existing system of reservoirs and under groundwater groundwater storage that are the main sources of water for cities and for agricultural and industry.

[00:12:51] And by unconventional sources, we're talking about sources that we often don't exploit because they're unsafe to drink without further treatment. Among the conventional water sources, there are some major trends emerging. In terms of more efficient use of groundwater, so typically what's been done for many hundreds of years is people will drill a groundwater well and they'll pump water out of that well until until it can't deliver any more water, and then the well runs dry.

[00:13:26] But increasingly we're finding that we can put water into the ground and replenish groundwater and use it like an underground storage reservoir. And so we see this idea that people refer to as managed aquifer recharge, where when we have a wet year, we make sure that instead of running off to the sea, the rainwater that falls has a chance to percolate into the ground.

[00:13:54] And so what we can do is we can take our streams and rivers that we've over many generations built levees on to try to avoid flooding and start opening up land to that water and allow that land to get flooded during wet seasons so it can percolate into the ground and recharge the aquifer.

[00:14:15] Obviously you wouldn't flood places where people are living or where you have important infrastructure, but we're seeing things like flooding farmlands during the wintertime when there are no crops on the fields, a practice known as flood managed aquifer recharge, showing great deal of promise for resupplying groundwater, and it's being taken on and in some cases people are even establishing so-called water banks.

[00:14:40] This idea that you can store water underground and draw that out during dry years, 

[00:14:46] Bob Gatty: is it the responsibility of government to manage all of this that you're talking about, to make it happen? 

[00:14:54] David Sedlak: In some cases, government is involved. For example, in Arizona, there's the central Arizona project, which takes water out of the Colorado River and brings it into the area around Phoenix.

[00:15:05] And in, in that case, you need the government to act as a referee of sorts, determining who can take water out and put it onto the ground and how water can be pumped back under the ground. So the government kind of acts in this role of making sure that people are able to draw back out the water that they put into the ground.

[00:15:25] But in many places it's done without direct government supervision. For example this practice of flood-managed aquifer recharge where farmers intentionally flood their fields during wintertime, needs minimal government oversight, provided that the water that they're taking out during the rainy season isn't already spoken for or does is it needed somewhere else.

[00:15:47] In fact, in many cases, that practice of taking water out of a stream during wintertime, floods can protect downstream communities from flooding. Government often serves as some sort of referee and in some cases maybe is the entity that that gets the project jump-started, but after a while private individuals can take over this practice of recharging aquifers.

[00:16:11] Bob Gatty: What about in countries where poor countries? I'm thinking of, countries in Africa where there's severe water shortage and not much in terms of governmental assistance. What happens there? I. 

[00:16:29] David Sedlak: So the most water stressed countries in the world are often places where there's a long history of water management.

[00:16:37] And I guess in, in the book, I spend a fair amount of time looking at India where there is plenty of government oversight and a long cultural history of doing things like recharging aquifers and and having the government involved in major projects to move water around, but in places that have less government oversight and infrastructure to manage water over time. You can see that, that people tend to take things into their own hands. One of those examples that I give in the book comes from Yemen, where the ancient practice of spate irrigation is still used. That is they get very few rain storms, but when they finally get a rainstorm, they the local farm communities route that rainwater onto their fields and let it percolate into the ground and use it much later. So when we look at places that have been populated and have had agriculture and cities for a long time, we see that there's usually an intricate system of water management that's already evolved.

[00:17:43] It's in places that are rapidly growing and rapidly urbanizing, that government often fails to keep up. So for example, when we look at the 15 largest fastest growing cities in the world, all of which are in sub-Saharan, Africa. They're doubling in population every 15 to 20 years. Whereas in the 19th century, London doubled in population every 40 years.

[00:18:11] And in the 20th century, Los Angeles doubled in population every 30 years or so. So we have these cities that are growing much faster than cities grew in the past. And the government is usually unable to keep up with these infrastructure needs. So you have cities that are turning from small cities into mega cities in a period of a couple of decades, and the government's just trying to keep up to provide transportation, infrastructure, electricity, telecommunications, hospitals, and water is just one of many different things that they often are falling behind on in terms of management and investment and creation of new infrastructure.

[00:18:55] Okay. 

[00:18:56] Bob Gatty: But there are places in the world that are practicing good water usage, I'm sure. And if that's the case, what can we learn from them? David, 

[00:19:06] David Sedlak: there are many places on earth that, that, that seem like they, they have figured some things out. And the places I think that we can best learn for are the places that have sought out gains in water use efficiency and conservation. Okay. And oftentimes we see that there are two main reasons why people are able to bring their water use into line. One is that water's expensive. So if you look at the United States the amount of water, the amount that we pay for water coming into our homes is much lower than many other, countries of similar economic status. A lot of the money to run our water systems comes from the central government, from either the federal government or state governments. And so because we don't pay a great deal for our water, most people are a little careless about how much they use. And changing the way we pay for water is one thing we can learn from other countries.

[00:20:05] And then the other thing is education. In countries like like Australia or Israel or Singapore, where per capita water use is relatively low, the education starts in in primary schools where kids are exposed to the idea that they shouldn't be wasting water. I. 

[00:20:24] Bob Gatty: Do we waste a ton of water here in this country?

[00:20:27] I'm thinking of in the summertime. Here I live in South Carolina where it's hot and people are running their irrigation systems outside constantly. I know that mine's on a lot. Is that a waste, is that a bad thing? 

[00:20:44] David Sedlak: Outdoor landscape irrigation is one of the main uses of water in the United States.

[00:20:52] In fact, in places that are hot or places that are hot and arid, it often accounts for over half of the household water use. Yeah. And when cities start running outta water, one of the first places they turn to is landscaping. And one of the problems here is that. No one wants to take out their green, lush lawn and replace it with a bunch of gravel and cactuses.

[00:21:16] People want something in between. And part of that is that it's not just the aesthetics. When you have, when you use water outside of your home, it keeps things cooler because the trees undergo this process of evapotranspiration that is when they breathe, they let water out. And that water vapor, as it evaporates, is a cooling process.

[00:21:35] And so you get from a tree, you get a combination of shade and cooling from evapotranspiration, from a lawn. You might not get shade, but you get this evaporation of water, which tends to keep things cooler, right? And so what we look for when we try to reduce water use in places facing water stress is not to take out the lawns and replace them with rocks and cactuses, but to find a combination of trees and plantings that offer people shade and plants that use a modest amount of water that at least keep the land cool and keep it from being hot and dusty.

[00:22:15] And so what we see in places like the American Southwest is that oftentimes neighborhoods can reduce their water use by 30 or 40 or 50% simply by mandating different types of landscaping and nothing that's draconian. It's just getting away from the traditional old-fashioned lawn, which takes, when you look at a turf grass, that's almost like an aquatic plant.

[00:22:41] It needs a great deal of water to keep it healthy. And so if you live in a place where water's plentiful and you wanna have that's fine. If you live in a place where you're concerned about using too much water, you can transition to things that are still beautiful and keep your landscape cool without using anywhere near as much water.

[00:23:02] Bob Gatty: I asked you the question because in the summertime, my water bill is double what it is this time of year, and it's because of my. Sprinkler system outside. 

[00:23:13] David Sedlak: And it's also because your utility is trying to send you a signal that it's trying to encourage you to reduce your water usage by by charging a little more money.

[00:23:21] And clearly it maybe hasn't gotten gotten the number right. Maybe it should be charging even more money. 

[00:23:26] Bob Gatty: Oh, no don't say that.

[00:23:29] Yeah. All where do we go next to ensure the best outcome here? How do we tackle these areas in, you know what, before I ask you that question, while you were talking and you were talking about trees here in where I live, it's really rapidly growing

[00:23:48] to the point where they're just going into area. I live in a community called Carolina Forest, and it used to, when I moved there seven years ago, there were lots of woods and and trees and it was beautiful. Now they've torn out all those trees and they're building shopping centers and putting in townhouses and apartment complexes and big storage facilities.

[00:24:21] And. My wife is always saying, don't they understand that those trees that they're taking down are breathing and providing oxygen and helping to cool our universe? Don't they care? What? What's your thought about all of that? 

[00:24:41] David Sedlak: It's a constant conflict that we see in America with respect to our urban development.

[00:24:48] We all wanna have a single family home with a nice lawn and yard around it, and that leads to this phenomenon that people refer to as urban sprawl. And we can try to keep the forests around ar around and wall some places off and tell developers that they can't take them down. But then that just forces people to take longer and longer commutes and disrupts their lives.

[00:25:13] And so what we see is this tension between what the city planners call urban densification, where you zone the land such that people can't have as big a plot of land and they're forced to live in multi-family dwellings and apartments. And that could be a good outcome for the forests and prevent people from doing long-distance commutes.

[00:25:35] But it isn't what we as Americans are used to and what most of us want. And so there's this constant push and pull and, cities like, like Atlanta and Dallas. And much of the southeast struggle with this all the time because the planners tell them that to solve some of the traffic problems, to address some of the water pollution problems, to make sure that they avoid the this phenomena of the urban heat island effect.

[00:26:02] All of these things that, that you might want to have your forests remain intact run counter to what most of the people who move to our cities want, which is single-family homes and the amenities around them where they can live and get around with their car.

[00:26:19] And it's not easy because, I think there are very few places that have figured out that right balance between keeping people happy and keeping them at the right density.

[00:26:28] Bob Gatty: Do you see the day where water is going to become even scarcer and more costly and the outcome for increasing numbers of people won't be so great. Or do you feel like we're making progress and that things will get better even in those areas where there's poverty and right now they don't have access to good, clean, affordable water. 

[00:27:03] David Sedlak: The main premise of this book is that we tend not to act with respect to water issues until we reach a state of crisis.

[00:27:13] And that climate change combined with global development is going to result in these crises happening more frequently and being more severe, but at the same time, the knowledge that we've accumulated and the technologies that we've developed and are developing give us new answers, and I think that the real answer to your question is depends a lot upon whether we can let go of some of our preconceived notions about how we manage water and take a different path forward in, in places. And I think that if we're capable of doing that, if we're capable about seeing this as a time when the status quo no longer works and we have to try something different there's a chance to come out in a much better place.

[00:28:05] Bob Gatty: Yeah, I'm not sure if I hear a warning there or not. 

[00:28:10] David Sedlak: I guess I, I feel like the warning is that the water crises that we've seen over the past 10 or 20 years, whether that's scarcity in places that have never experienced scarcity before, or pollution with new types of chemicals or concerns that we don't have enough water to grow food.

[00:28:30] Those are only gonna increase. But I think the capacity of humans to be creative means that we have the potential to to get on top of this and get in front of it before it's too late. 

[00:28:45] Bob Gatty: We need to have a strategy a plan. Who is going to do that? I asked you the question before about the role of the government, but in many areas the government isn't doing anything, I guess I, so who's in charge? 

[00:29:02] David Sedlak: One of the issues about water is that it is often a local issue. But it has elements that have regional and national implications. And so the first line of response when there's a water crisis is usually local government and local government at least, is more closely tied to people's trust and belief, and is a, and often has an ability to be more responsive.

[00:29:32] So I think that some of the problem solving with respect to water crises is going to be local and it's really the people who use the water and the people who provide the water, who figure it out. But that can be greatly aided by state governments, by regional consortia. For example, in the Western United States, we can't start thinking about managing the Colorado River without bringing all the states and the two countries involved in the Colorado River together to hash out the problem.

[00:30:05] So regional entities, and then finally, the federal government can play a role in this, but it's not gonna underwrite the solutions. I think what the federal government does today is it acts a little bit more an enthusiast or a cheerleader. And maybe sometimes a catalyst of change. I don't think we can expect to see another Clean Water Act or safe Drinking Water Act.

[00:30:28] That is, that was from a time when the country was a lot less polarized and government had a bigger view about what it could do. So my, my guess of what will happen in the United States is that water problems will be solved locally and at state levels and regionally with the federal government at best coming into coordinate and share knowledge and hopefully catalyze research and development and new approaches.

[00:30:58] Bob Gatty: Is this an issue that people need to be concerned about going into the election? 

[00:31:02] David Sedlak: Haha, there's so many issues that people are concerned about going into election. I can say that the federal government has a big impact on water uses and water rights, but probably more importantly in the election is where different, candidates come out with respect to climate change because as I said in the book, climate change is one of the big driver of future water crises. If we don't get our climate under control, we're gonna have a lot deeper crises, and even our most creative solutions won't hold. I guess if you want to ask the question about what a voter could do to to assure that we won't have future water crises is to think about how politicians stances are on addressing climate change. 

[00:31:53] Bob Gatty: Yeah, that brings me to this point. The other day I interviewed someone about climate change. Actually, I the person that I interviewed was a PR guy and he's a risk management expert. He talked about the way that, that certain sides of the debate frame things and pointed out that back in the Bush administration, they decided that they needed to change the term from global warming to climate change because it was less scary for people. Was that a mistake, do you think?

[00:32:44] David Sedlak: I'm not sure I understand the full history of that change, but you know it in my experience people are often looking for terminology that has less baggage associated with it one way or another, and they tie themselves up in knots in terms of finding things that are that, that don't turn people off or don't alienate folks right away.

[00:33:10] Yeah. I think water is one of those issues that. We it's an unusual issue in the United States in that most people agree that clean water is a great goal and an adequate supply of water is important. And so it's when you get into the details of what you're gonna do about it, that you tend to run into these Framing issues.

[00:33:31] And I hope that people, when they talk about water, will continue to see it as a non-polarizing issue. Because everyone needs water. And water is important for economic reasons. It's also important for health reasons and environmental reasons. It's not, no one party or one group of people should own water.

[00:33:56] We, we all have a stake to play in resolving our water issues. 

[00:34:01] Bob Gatty: Yeah, but you do talk in the book about how the wealthy have access to water relatively easily, but that's not the case for. People who have less, have fewer resources who are poor. So it's a, it, isn't it another issue of almost of greed rolling into this picture is that.

[00:34:28] David Sedlak: It comes down to something that I really appreciated when I first learned about it and this idea of water as a human right? Yeah. And so the first time you hear that, you say what does that exactly mean, that water is a human, right? Yeah. The United Nations defined it as every citizen of every country has the right to access, safe, affordable an adequate quantity of safe, affordable water.

[00:34:54] But when you dig into that a little bit, that it's more complicated than that, right? Because. Some elements of free enterprise are essential to assuring that water is safe and affordable, and we can't just hope spend a bunch of money and hope for the best. And some of the greatest things with respect to water access have come from the benefits of private companies and individuals seeking a profit.

[00:35:20] But at the end of the day, there still is this obligation of governments to assure an adequate quantity and safe of safe and affordable water if we believe in a human right to water. So I think if we could frame it as the question of is there a human right to water? Then I think we at least start a conversation that the next question is how much of a sacrifice should an individual be willing to make to get water? And what's an adequate quantity of water and how should they go about getting it? So it, it is one where, greed sometimes gets in the way. And this is one of the places where government has a role to play.

[00:36:00] And I think in terms of Enforcing a public trust and providing certain basic things that we come to rely upon being in a, a country is really the place where I see that happening. Okay. 

[00:36:14] Bob Gatty: Now your last book water 4.0 looked at the history of water systems. What did you learn in the decade between that book and today that made you want to write this new book?

[00:36:28] David Sedlak: I think I learned that people are. I hate to say this, pun are thirsty to learn more about water systems. The reception that I got from that book is that so many people not just, members of the general public, but even people who worked in the field of water just didn't know the details of what was behind the water system that we've inherited from our grandparents and great-grandparents.

[00:36:51] And so as I learned about this book, I saw how some things we didn't know in our own country were there. But then I realized that globally there are a number of issues that people talk about without being fully in informed about the subtleties and differences. So one of the things I say in the book is that I've yet to find a person who's set out to to be a bureaucrat who prevented people from getting access to water. I've yet to find someone who's set out to be a water villain. I think that most people set out in whatever they do with respect to water, whether that's in a wealthy country or poor country, whether it's for agriculture or for industry.

[00:37:31] They set out trying to do the right thing and understanding the connections among the different ways that we need and use water helps us see where the problems arise. 

[00:37:43] Bob Gatty: Anything else you'd like to add, David? I 

[00:37:46] David Sedlak: think what I would add is that all too often when we hear about water, we hear about the impending crises and the disasters and the things that have happened to people.

[00:37:58] But our water systems are also a modern miracle. The water that we have lets us do incredible things. And there have been generations of people investing their time and energy in assuring that we have access to safe and affordable water. And there there's a whole cadre of people doing that now, and I think if we allow them to, they can solve the water problems that we'll face in the future.

[00:38:24] Bob Gatty: What does the Berkeley Water Center do? 

[00:38:28] David Sedlak: Water Center's mandate is to try to ensure that researchers have the ability to work together, to solve water problems and to interact with the larger society. So we're not just doing ivory tower research. And so we're really a consolidator of of good ideas that come from the university and and also identifying the problems that need to be solved.

[00:38:54] Bob Gatty: Excellent. Where can people find your new book? David? 

[00:38:59] David Sedlak: Water for All is available in lots of bookstores. I found it in my local bookstore, a few other bookstores, and it's also available from all the usual online sellers. 

[00:39:08] Bob Gatty: Okay, excellent. What's next for you? 

[00:39:13] David Sedlak: Next for me is probably take a break from writing the next book, but 

[00:39:16] Bob Gatty: you got another one coming up?

[00:39:18] David Sedlak: I've been teaching a class for the last 12 years with a lawyer and a couple of ecologists called climate Change in the Future of California. And it's a book whose intention is to try to understand what it takes to be a citizen in a place that's undergoing climate change, trying to adapt to it and trying to be a leader in mitigating its impacts.

[00:39:45] And so at some point that might be a story worth telling. 

[00:39:49] Bob Gatty: Okay. If you get around to doing that book, let me know. If I'm still doing this podcast, we'll do something with it. Great. 

[00:39:57] David Sedlak: Love to do it. 

[00:39:58] Bob Gatty: Thank you, Bob. Alright. Thanks so much.