Why water is the new gold in the western US | DW News 

You didn’t have to be an expert to know this water crisis was coming.

Some will drown and others will die of thirst. Thats what Climate Change will do to the world.

As a US citizen living in the USA, I feel even more deeply betrayed by our domestic media sources that I had to observe this story for the first time from DW, a foreign German media institution, instead of from MSNBC, PBS, CBS, FOX, etc... Do the powers that be in the US and the people of the USA truly care so little about being good stewards of what's around us?

Shut down golf courses that use tons of water.

In CO we say cut the water off, who builds in a desert and expects it to not dry out?

DW, I am surprised and disappointed that you looked no further at water use in the Nevada than municipal. What about industrial, or agricultural? Everyone knows these are the largest consumers on the Colorado. Please do a piece on "paper water" while you are in Las Vegas.

thank you so very much all DW News Reporters and all DW News Staff.

Better title: Is the Western USA drying up? The answer is, yes. The Eastern USA is experiencing unprecedented flooding, though.

Waters always been worth more than gold

Re-use grey water. Where it does rain encourage rain water harvesting or have infrastructure to collect run off. More composting toilets. Give each person a water allowance and if they exceed that the cost goes up by tiers. No more almond and other intensive crop farming. More of those devices that capture water from the atmosphere. More nucleur powered desalination. Give out those free water saving shower heads. Encourage urinals in new build homes.

Too many people consuming finite resources. Noone mentions that though, for some reason

Back in the mid 1970s my buddy and myself put together an essay about what future wars would be fought over. Water came a close second to oil and other mineral resources, but our thinking had nothing to do with global warming. We based our projections on an exploding population and the fact that drinking water is a finite resource. We didn't even consider climate change and how rapidly it would happen as it was barely a thing back then. We knew that a warmer climate was coming naturally, and it would lead to warmer, wetter and windier conditions. However, it seems like this water shortage in the states has been exacerbated by amateurish planning and total mismanagement of the most precious resource on the planet.

why is the audio only coming from the left channel?

To be honest, it was insane to allow Las Vegas to grow to the size it currently is. If you want to live in a desert, you pay the price.

In the UK half our fresh water is used in turbine generators, by replacing them all with wind and solar we will double our water supplies.

Water has ALWAYS been gold in the western US! It's just that now this blue gold is becoming more scarce.....

This just the start. A community in Wisconsin, USA, known in the 19th c. for its natural springs and holiday spas now gone, was thirsting for safe drinking water in the early 2000s. It reached across natural watershed boundaries to grab water from Lake Michigan. The far south west, across the US continental divide, has floated that idea many years ago.

Golf courses in the desert aren't a good idea

Horrible audio

pro tip: use both the left and right speaker for sound, not just one speaker.

Something is really messed up with the audio. Often times only on the left.

Its possible real estate values in NV, AZ, etc. may collapse. Who can live without water?

Same situation from the Euphrates to Murray river all slowly drying up…💧

The tidbit here is in order to preserve lake Mead at its current 25% or so fill water use will have to be cut by 30%. With some 70-80% of water used for agriculture and most of it allocated to California with senior water rights, states like Az have been made to cut first. (Ca does have its own issues of water locally). Of the water utilized for agriculture much of it goes to growing alfalfa and cotton both water intensive crops. Alfalfa feeds cattle, which in turn are now being sold off by ranchers who cannot afford to feed or water them; their grassland is parched. The US West and South West is prone to decade log droughts of 25 to 50 years over the ages, when they last that long it’s wrong headed to consider them exceptional rather than the norm.

What happened to the desalination progects?

This is happening around the world, not only in America. We must unite and share fresh water, we have been fighting over oil far too long. Let us save fresh water and stop fighting for oil companies

Your video only has sound on the left side (of headhpones/speaker)

I wish they'd stop calling problems "challenges". Running out of water isn't some exciting opportunity for self-actualization, it's just a bad thing that you have to deal with somehow.

The audio is terrible fluctuating from low for the reporter to high for the interviewees.

Just because y'all are going through big crises doesnt mean you need to talk about America now and hyperinflate the situation, it has always been like this around texas new mexico nevada and arizona. Nothing new its desert land, the rest of America has such a surplus of water that we actually continuously send the desert states water. Hopefully we can develop some technology to fix this situation but it is in Gods hands.

The moment I knew water is traded at commodities exchange I realized how bad the water supply is in the future

Audio on the left side only.

Fix your sound.. use stereo.. not mono..

Drying up...or being mismanaged deliberately ...just like the forests? There is more than enough water...even in California.

"Wasichu" which in Lakota Sioux means ," he who takes more than he needs." This is their word for the wyt man. This is the world they created with their GREEDY culture

may your reservoirs refill with all that extra moisture in our warmer air.

Lake Las Vegas has taken more then 2 billion gallons of water out of lake mead in the past 2 years.

So much for a Developed country. US is slowly crumbling and it's just tragic.

Western US is drying up and that is a fact. Government needs to do something about it. At the meantime we have other major issues in healthcare, education, social programs, infrastructure, public transportation to name a few. Our government is not interesting in solving any of these issues. Instead, building more military bases and conquering the rest of the world seem to take precedence over anything else. Is that how our democracy works?

Same problems in China, Europe, Australia,… :(

One channel audio?

Every state that gets water for Lake Mead is rationing water consumption EXCEPT CALIFORIA

No...

This video seems oddly unfocussed. People have to drive further to put their boats in the water? People don't "come here to recreate anymore"? I assume the real question is "Are they going to run out of drinking water?"

Why not construct reservoirs using sea water that has undergone reverse-osmosis? Too expensive, what are the alternatives?

If Colorado river went dry, the South West States would become Sahara Desert of the United States.

I’m drinking my 1st cup of coffee as the sun is just about ready to rise above Lake Superior my # 1 ingredient in my coffee ☕️ as our municipality gets its water straight from the lake and I wonder how much longer we can avoid the pressure of the western United States need for one of our nations greatest resources Will Lake Superior have bathtub rings in its future and will Lake Superior water become a political grab from the profligate western states. California didn’t invest in desalination but it’s not too late as that technology is surely less expensive than an aqua-duct

Every home and business should install a rain water collection and storage system along with solar panels. Even in areas where rain is infrequent it is crazy to waste the little rain that does fall and waste it. We need to stop planting green lawns and switch to local native plantings around homes. It is crazy to plant lawns and build golf courses in dry desert areas. We waste too much water and electricity.

Look up swales reversing desertification, video of swales turning deserts in Arizona and in India and in Iraq and in Australia turning green from swales and ponds and by check dams.

Hey Elon? Are your tunnels full of water yet? Asking for a friend.

The sad part of all of it is that leader knew from the onset when the Colorado river was allocated between the states. They knew then it wasn't sustainable and they had no inkling of the population explosion much less climate change. Las Vegas? It won't last. Letting a mafia man build a casino in the middle of the desert was no brainer to begin with. But they knew even then that the aquifiers that supported all of it would run dry. What is being done now is too little to late. Las Vegas won't be there in another fifty years. The great migrations from climate change have already begun, water wars are just beginning, agriculture the way we know it is dead as is a huge chunk of the worlds population. When one uses more resources (we use the resources of one and a half earths a year) than it has and ignores it for big money interests, it isn't rocket science to figure out what will happen when nothing is done. The world leaders are to blame, we are complicit in letting them do it, and chastising those voices that have been and are screaming out and attempting to do something about it.

the audio though

The sound of this video is mostly only on the left channel most of the time. Not a nice way watching this video.😵‍💫

Is there any audio? I hear nothing

No issues here in the Midwest. Surrounded by the Great lakes!

Would planting more tree's help. Cutting down the rain forest is probably one of the problem. Cleaning up the oceans or any water ways should be a must....So much can be done but we are to focused on fighting each other.

The only way to "fix" no water is to get your wagons back out and head east.

My left ear enjoyed this.

Ask the water on golf courses

So glad I live on a well.

It's just a strange juxtaposition to us living in the eastern half because we have been getting 25-50% more rainfall than usual the past 4 years. We average 1000mm annually in my city and most years are 1300-1500 mm recently.

Building seawater desalination is a solution like the Gulf Arab countries they have no problem with Water...can use nuclear or solar energy

The population of Las Vegas was about 500,000 at the turn of the century, and its 2.3 million people now. And we're not counting the tourists that visit each year. I think that has more to do with the water level dropping in a desert town than climate change.

They forgot Mexico also depend on this river.

please... USA will be fine. They just need to find a country with a good amount of water then promise a million things to them, never give them, and take the water away. America #1 baby! Nothing new...

If you want to reclaim desert, you do not remove the vegetation, you plant more. Then the green reflects infrared, the roots hold the soil together and retain water.

NO it's DRYING down!

Immediately introduce " No Child policy for a decade" Heavy taxing on meat No pet dogs /. No swimming pool policy. Heavy outsourcing needed No immigrants/ No citizenship to foreigners No food exports for a decade. Banning water intensive crops like : rice , wheat alfalfa, Soy

How many years need at least to reduce global warming?

At risk of revealing the extent of my ignorance, have any of the Water Mgmt Authorities thought about or ACTUALLY enacted any Water Capture Measures in the way that western India has been doing for over 30 years ALREADY?

Yeah what ever you do you are not getting your water back anymore.

Knew this was coming

They're getting pounded now with a huge system, and looks like to me 2 more behind this one. People are dying from floods and snow.

Where are the many ponds and catchments to catch and keep rain and snow. Where are the wetlands? 8% of the US were once covered in water. Where are the structures, that slowed the speeds of creeks and rivers, the vegetation? Nothing real has bern done or is being done to manage water properly. Each farm could store their own water for their own use, so could cities. This needs to be built into any development.

No matter what we do now the world is going to be unlivable in just a few years. This cycle is just picking up steam and will be more powerful every year. The amount of devastation will be mind boggling. Get used to it.

It's almost guarantee that some people are waiting for this to happen just so they can make a profit.

Dry them up.

3rd year La Niña. Irrigation. Thats why. And it has been much worse before.

For decades US ag has been cavalier with planting crops requiring extensive irrigation, ignoring the loss to aquifers and rivers. Extensive lawns, golf courses in the desert, and other illogical waste of water predates this new level of water shortage from climate change. Loss of native salmon in the PNW is an ongoing environmental tragedy but governors will not advance solutions.

It's the entire northern Hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere will have drought in thier summer too.

I almost bought a little house in Arizona last November. I don't want to live there if it's still water. I'm going to stay here in Indiana

I thought my headphone was broken...

Maybe one of your problems is Waterkeeper, water treatment plants Hyperion, Tillman, Burbank and Los Angeles-Glendale dump an average of nearly 270 million gallons of treated water into the Los Angeles River and Pacific Ocean every day.

Maybe countries like the Uk should invest in more bottled water plants we have loads and could discount sales to our closest allie The U S

Not in the fing NE wettest September i can remember.

Just make sure the remedy isn't worse than the problem. Doing nothing for years even though it was forseen what would happen and now in a panik springing into action may lead to bodged solutions.

Well the title is actually misleading. The western United States is drying up but the Eastern United States is being drenched. The answer is to build solar powered aqueducts from the Eastern us to the Western us to spread the water out more evenly. In the US we need to face the fact that we've been flat out lied to from the very beginning of this environmental crisis in that we've been told it was all our fault and that overpopulation and excess population density combined with low levels of intellectual and/or material productivity where no problem.

Rainforests are being replaced by palmtree oil plants. Do your simple research.

We have plenty of water in asia

I think we should ban non functional turf nationally. That would make a dent.

Building cities in a desert environment... Plus an increasing population. Will heighten the demand and usage of the available water. Well I never new that 😂😂😂😉

Desalination plants!

The truth is the climate change has incited a displacement of participation in various forms. It might turn out because one place is hotter, more river and lake will be evaporated but up in the stratosphere the heavily weighed air will turn to snow or hail or rain when it met with cooler air, in the end places that are cold would seen heavier snow. Places in hilly places there would be deluge of water causing flesh flooding.

I just fear for the future of Brazil, rich of natural resources ( water) and a frail democracy....

it's too late

Cute amarico🥺🥺🥺

US subterranean Aquifers have been bleed for decades and now the Harsh reality is Hitting Home

Seems not that there is less water, just more people and use of it.

Here we go again: global warming....global warming....global warming. What about if it rains the next couple of years enough to fill up lake Mead. What are you going to say then. Not possible? Think again.

karma hits hard