UC Santa Barbara

In this issue paper, the authors refine the definition of water sustainability to account for temporal dynamics and spatial variability, identify specific challenges that must be resolved in the very near future to avoid catastrophic outcomes on levels ranging from economic disruption to survival of mankind, discuss related policy changes and potential effectiveness, and describe several technologies available to achieve water security and sustainability. While water quality certainly poses formidable challenges, in this piece we emphasize and address challenges associated with dynamic water supply availability. Our future as a society will depend upon how well and how rapidly we navigate these challenges in the coming years. As such, the main objective is to encourage private and public sector practitioners to consider revising existing programs, and to update current industry business models in a manner that promotes expedited solutions, alignment of beneficial goals, and motivates the biggest consumers of water to adopt modern data collection and decision support technologies.