Confronting a Dry Future
August 13, 2021
The US Bureau of Reclamation is expected to announce the first-ever mandatory cuts to water allocations from the Colorado River. The move comes as drought in the American West has intensified and reservoirs have dipped to historic lows. Solving this will be a challenge. Indeed, Lewis Branscomb in Issues calls improving management of water resources one of the nation’s “grand challenges”—technically complex societal problems that have stubbornly defied solution. He argues for adopting new “research and innovation policies” spanning government, business, and the science community to shorten the time and cost of innovations needed to meet these challenges.