Folks in New Mexico got together early this month to talk about water. In 2001, for the first time in recorded history, the Rio Grande ceased to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The counties around Albuquerque include three large watersheds, but the region is using 20 percent more water than they receive, resulting in a draining of the aquifers. People are moving to the southwestern U.S. in droves, coming from states which, even in times of drought, receive two or three times as much rain as New Mexico gets in a year of high rainfall. Water shortages like New Mexico is experiencing are unfathomable to most of these upscale immigrants.

Limiting car washing or lawn sprinkling to even or odd days isn’t going to solve the problem. New Mexicans are starting to ask what they are willing to give up, and it could come down to choosing between irrigating their crops or taking a hot shower.

It doesn’t look a lot better in Kansas, which is parked right on top of the High Plains aquifer. Also called the Ogallala, this source of water, which stretches beneath eight states, was formed millions of years ago and has been pumped furiously since the 1940s to feed people in this country and around the world. But it’s starting to run dry in some parts.

Some farmers in western Kansas are shutting down their wells and cutting back on irrigating their corn and alfalfa. Water is clearly an economic resource. If farmers can’t grow a crop, they can’t make money. And we can’t eat. But if the farmers in Kansas continue to deplete the aquifer, it’s like spending the principle on your investment. Eventually it’s going to run out. Our thirst for water has tripled in the last 50 years and we are now facing the depletion of aquifers around the world. In China, the water table that provides irrigation to grow half that country’s wheat and a third of its corn is dropping. The wells are running dry in Pakistan, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. One of Africa’s largest bodies of water, Lake Chad, is disappearing rapidly. The former Soviet Union’s irrigation plan to support water-intensive crops in Central Asia is turning the Aral Sea into a toxic desert. With 17 percent of the world's population but just four percent of its fresh water, India is struggling with a water crisis that has gripped the entire country.

Seventy percent of the water used by humans on the planet goes to irrigate crops. In the U.S. in 2000, irrigation accounted for 40 percent of water withdrawals; thermoelectric power demanded 39 percent, while public supply uses accounted for 13 percent of freshwater consumption, according to the United States Geological Survey. (The majority of water used in power production is recycled into the environment.) Water use in the food, paper, chemical, petroleum refining, and metal industries accounts for approximately 5 percent.

The shortages in many parts of this country allude to an omen of even greater problems to come. According to the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, of the 147 countries ranked for water efficiency by the World Water Council, the United States ranked last where inefficiencies at times reached 50 percent. Across the country, agricultural needs are all too often in conflict with urban needs.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently studied the Colorado River, which supplies water to about 25 million people and to millions of acres of farmland in seven states. The report concluded that severe water shortages could restrict agriculture, industry, and the expansion of population in the southwestern United States, the fastest-growing region of the country. Arizona’s population increased by 40 percent in the 1990s; Colorado’s grew by 30 percent. Water consumption in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, doubled between 1985 and 2000.

Reducing irrigation will do little to satisfy the increasing needs of growing urban areas; water conservation and recycling practices will not solve the problem. The NAS report urges governments to undertake a “comprehensive, action-oriented study” of water practices in the Colorado basin and devise a viable water management strategy. Climate change will only exacerbate the problem, reducing rainfall and river flows, according to the report.

Thermoelectric power plants use surface water to generate electricity with steam-driven turbine generators and to cool the power-producing equipment in both nuclear reactors and other power plants. Most of these withdrawals are returned to the atmosphere through evaporation. In coastal areas, the use of saline water reduces the demand on freshwater withdrawals.

The effects of climate change grow the problem exponentially to a worldwide level. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported this year that within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people wouldn’t have enough water. For a time, food may be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report. Hundreds of millions of Africans and tens of millions of Latin Americans who now have water will experience shortages in less than 20 years. By 2050, more than one billion people in Asia could face water shortages. By 2080, water shortages could threaten 1.1 billion to 3.2 billion people, depending on the level of greenhouse gases Water quality is also exacerbating the problem. An increasing rate of contamination of water from industrial waste, urban waste, and irrigation diminishes the supply of potable freshwater. Pollution has so diminished the world’s freshwater resources that less than one percent of it can be used for drinking or agriculture.

In 2005, Coca-Cola was ordered to close a plant in Kerala, India. The plant did not have adequate waste treatment systems, toxic products from the plant were affecting drinking water in nearby villages, and the plant did not provide drinking water in a satisfying manner. Local residents complained that their wells ran dry just months after the plant began operations. Later a local doctor declared the available water was unfit for consumption.

The local village’s battle against Coca-Cola paid off, not only for themselves, but also for the planet. The company has just announced a $20 million commitment to the World Wildlife Fund to help conserve seven of the world's most important freshwater river basins, support more efficient water management in its operations and global supply chain, and reduce the company's carbon footprint. The company also pledged to reduce the water used to produce its beverages, recycle water used for beverage manufacturing processes and return it safely to the environment, and replenish water in communities through rainwater harvesting better irrigation practices, and community water projects.

The incident with Coca-Cola demonstrates a call to action in what is growing into a worldwide water crisis. According to the World Water Council, huge savings of water and improving water management is both critical and possible. Almost everywhere, water is wasted, while our thirst for water increases as our populations and economies grow. Within the next fifty years, the world population is predicted to increase by another 40 to 50 percent. This population growth, coupled with industrialization and urbanization, will result in an increasing demand for water and will have serious consequences on the environment.

As individuals, we must become more aware of the water we use. We surely will be paying more for access to it, and we absolutely must begin to conserve it. Whether that means lifestyle changes from turning off the tap when we brush our teeth; choosing more plant-based foods, which require far less water; or demanding that industry and government implement stronger conservation policies and management technologies, an increased appreciation of water, our most vital natural resource, is critical. And immediate action is essential. Just ask the thirsty citizens of New Mexico and Kansas, of India and Africa, of China and central Asia and Saudi Arabia.