California Drought Lessons: Water Shortage Solutions From Israel

California is not the only place struggling with water crisis but how much of the world now is dealing with too little water? The US government is now guesstimating that within the next 10 years as much as 60% of the world landmass and 40 of our 50 states will be facing water scarcity. Already eight US states are in drought or drought emergency and we have another half-dozen are coming up with drought as well. Obviously climate change has something to do with the drought we are seeing globally but what else has led to these global water shortages? The problem instructional so even if it rains in the time of note are for 40 days and 49's we still wouldn't solve all the problems. With problems with the rising global population and were about 7 billion people now in close to 10 billion people and we will be more stretched than rising affluence and seemed that even the most elementary middle-class life uses enormously more cash -- more water than poverty is a electricity and we have broken structure and urbanization which increases water going into aquifers and the climate aid -- change issue is not something going away soon and causing all kinds of problems. Even when it's raining a lot like El Niño and La Niña cycle the problem is it's hitting the soil and rock hard soil that runs off as it if it was asphalt. And when did the nation of Israel decided water was its highest priority? You ask a great question and it was baked into the existential thought of the state even before the state. Starting in the late 1930s, you start thinking about the fact that they're going to have large number of immigrants and a pretty water stressed area and come up with new ideas on how they are going to use water in a way that frankly no one else in the world is yet thinking about in that way. By the time the state is formed in 1948, there already ahead of where most of the countries especially the decolonize countries are standing and along the years they been integrating all kinds of great technologies and revolutionize agriculture in the 1960s by saying we are no longer going to flood and irrigate our fields and there hasn't been a flood irrigated field in many decades. They invented drip irrigation there and we use almost 90% of their sewage for Al Gore -- -- agriculture and they're not inventors of desalination but they significantly advance or of that process. What kind of challenges did Israel face in implementing some of its water solving strategies? It's the same as everywhere else you've to make choices and what's a special that Israel is the same way they did about defense and security and they made it into an extensive -- existential issue and built a great army and they made water the same way and decided they were going to pay the price had to pay. And Israelis pay a lot of taxes for all kinds of things but one of which is they pay high water fees because they made the decision to have not just a first world water system but as great a water system as there can be. And what that's why today even though there in the desert there so water abundant to have water for the neighbors and share with others. That's amazing. In your book what there be water you talk about their pricing of water and you just mentioned the fact that making sure that there's a fair price paid for water in Israel as part of the overall strategy. What does that mean no? What it means is if you imagine a lockbox system where you are going to pay for the real cost of sourcing your water, building the infrastructure, and doing all the pieces that you need to get your water system right, everyone is going to pay their fair share for the water. And in the United States we have a fanciful system and its unequal because parts of the country pay one way even within some communities some people have subsidize water and if you have property adjacent to a river or lake you have basically free water. So we developed a very sloppy and very wasteful approach to our water. A lot of people think they're talking about long showers are turning off the water while you brush your teeth but frankly those are really the minimus. The real key thing is that we think about this in a way of paying for the water so we fix our leaks and fix our infrastructure and implement technology and so in Israel because there's a real price paid for water and because they prioritize the use of technology to reduce this cost, everyone is acting in an economically rational way and in the United States we don't. Can you translate for us the comparable price of water here in San Diego our water bills every two months are between $100 and $200. Can you translate what that would be for a family in Israel? What they do in Israel is it's an interesting system and they determine what would be eight to month usage level by the population of the household and then up to a certain threshold they have a mildly subsidized and then above that threshold there's a mild penalty. So the idea is you pay a little under a penny per gallon up to the threshold and then above the threshold you pay about a penny and one third per gallon. It worked out on a national basis it allows for the building of desalinization plants, parallel national infrastructure for sewage treatment and sewage water to be used for agriculture and it allows for all kinds of innovation. In fact the city by city utilities in Israel get penalized if they do not start using technologies to fixed their systems and when they do use technologies that work they get a bonus and then they get to share it with technologies with other cities. Said I don't know how you've long you've been in telephone you but we here have a labyrinth of water agreements and it's a hodgepodge of arrangements about which areas and industries get first access to water and so forth, in Israel there's a centrally controlled water sector, can you tell us what that means? What we have here is a system that was developed at a time when there was not a lot of people here and a great deal of water here and we did also sorts of incentives to get people to build the economy, meaning here right now in telephone you. And likewise throughout the entire West I came from a week speaking in Texas there some 4600 water districts in the state of Texas. Is about 1/10 of that in California. Israel made a decision that the highest best use approach to water would govern and even when the country went through a wave of privatization of government owned industries and he resources the decision was made that the one and only resource that would not be privatized was water because it's considered so important and they want to have the highest best use approach for a central, apolitical, technocratic authority which would figure out how to make the best use of the water and it has worked out very well for everybody. It's worked out so well as you mentioned that not only has Israel saw any water shortages but they are able to export water and water technologies and it's led to what you call Hydro diplomacy. Tells about that. Hydro diplomacy is a wonderful idea which embeds in the fact that Israel not only has the great water abundance but for its self and its own economy and convenience of its people but it's intelligently almost by accident at first used its water smarts to help develop economic and then through that diplomatic relationships with countries all over the world percussive from 1962 through 79 for their is a story I told my book Israel basically ran the water center of Iran. It was a way of developing a deep friendship and the used water to open the friendship with an Islamic country and when they finally leave Iran in 1979 to get chased out and the ayatollahs either exile or execute or imprison the Iranian water engineers who worked with the Israelis and they left behind a good working system but at the core what it created was an opportunity for dialogue and conversation like wings with China who developed diplomatic illusions with Israel to help fix the water province. And so on around the world. Even today there's about 150 countries that trade by Israel -- and by Israeli water technology and many who have no diplomatic technology and the same countries that savage Israel and the United Nations tips but if the past way to peace and even with the Palestinians Israel uses water as a way of sharing ideas and developing relations in creating people to people diplomacy. Now Seth through your deployment ash expertise and through this book when you're sure you've met with water managers from across San Diego can you tells a little bit about that meeting and what did y'all discuss? It was an envious meeting because they were intrigued and most of them have read the book and they were intrigued by the way that Israel had been able to manage its destiny and one of the things they were most jealous about with something we've talked about is the fact that they charge a real price for water and they not only do that but they also do as they have a lockbox system. So when you pay water and sewage be in the most United States I'm not sure what happened here but in most of the US when you pay water or sewage fee the municipality takes the water -- money and puts in the general budget. In Israel by law every penny you pay for water or sewage must be used to fix infrastructure, adopt technology, and to think about what is next in the needs. Because of that Israel for years now has been able to jump ahead of the water innovation curve. Seth our discount is Asia plant which is really a pretty big deal -- desalinization plant which is a big deal in the US officially opens next week and in the city of San Diego were investing in water purification technology and is our pure water project what other technologies can California implement to try to emulate Israel's example in using this process -- precious resource more wildly. You're quite correct Carlsbad to solid visitation plan is and it is really designed and built plant and it's financed by them and it's in play. The single most important thing California and the United States can be doing now is to rethink our use of water in agriculture. In the United States between 70 and 80% of our water goes to agriculture. Maureen I cannot begin to tell you how horribly wasteful we are. We mostly flood irrigation which is the same techniques he believes that the Don of civilization in the now Delta and Tigris and Euphrates systems and what Israel did in the 1960s is invent drip irrigation and there has not been a single field flood irrigated in a very long time and the value of that is that 60% of the water with flood irrigation is lost pointlessly to evaporation and a lot troubles into the soil. If we can adopt in the US a system of smart irrigation, we'd be able to push out the day that the climate change is no longer perhaps the problem that we have but if we can continue using our surface water and frankly far worse if we continue pumping our aquifers at the rate that we have been, we will face calamity, not a problem or economic problem but a calamity and furthermore all around the world they are over pumping their aquifers and we are talking about the possibility of continental size migrations that will be necessary in countries that are friendly to United States and will up and local security patterns is India, China, Brazil, South Africa and other countries like that don't get their water stories right because their water is starting to give out which by the way could happen to us also in the late 2020s or early 20s 30s. And in California and a farmers have really made great advances in moving to the kind of drip irrigation that you are talking about I want to say by the way because I just gave this mad Max and of days image of the world and it's possible to be very depressed about all this but I think the opposite is also possibility because that's why wrote the book and I'm a businessman and inherently an optimist that looks for solutions and what I think is is what we learned from Israel which has a rapidly growing population and fast-growing economy and very little water and it has vanished to build out this water superpower and therefore if they can do it, we have more water, we have more money, more smart and more great institutions of learning and we have the opportunity to do it for ourselves and help others around the world do it to. And that's what we need to do I'm an optimist if we get it right if we don't get it right problems. Yes indeed. He will be speaking about his book let there be water Israel solution for a water-starved world at two events today and one is on the SBS U campus starting at 3:30 PM and tonight at 7 PM at Temple [ Indiscernible ] in [ Indiscernible ]. Thank you so much for coming in speaking with us.