Water in Crisis around the world, and check out UN SDGs

 There is a major issue that just a decade or two ago people were beginning to worry about, and now seems to be here at an accelerating pace - water shortages. 

With population growth and climate change, more regions of the world are suffering changes in rain and snow falls, extended droughts, and changes in agriculture. Water is in shortage in more locations around the world, and perhaps Americans will begin to realize this (although those living in the west and southwest are already living it) as rivers and watersheds in the US begin to dry up. 

Check out CNN's feature on the Colorado River, the most important river running through the southwest. In fact, just one week ago the federal government declared a water shortage for the Colorado River for the first time ever. Parts of the Mideast are becoming uninhabitable. The path much of the world, certainly coastlines, can and will need to take for fresh water is desalination (if you can develop a cost-effective, large-scale process for this, you will be among the billionaire crowd and will help hundreds of millions/billions of people in the process). This has already started in very limited locations, but here is a 2015 article outlining the thinking for the past decade. 

Having water, the most basic consumable humans and all life as we know it need to survive, is, of course, one of the great problems and issues the world faces, and is highlighted by the United Nations in its list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These will be referred to on occasion, and we will have a 2nd quarter project built around whichever goal is most interesting/important to you!