In eight years, California will face a shortfall of freshwater as great as the amount of water all of its cities and towns are consuming today. That is just one of several startling "factoids," as he calls them, from Jay Kimball, founder of 8020 Vision, which focuses on sustainability issues and solutions.
 
Kimball says his audiences invariably get uncomfortable when he presents his list of potential water challenges. For instance, among his surprising predictions are the following:
• Within about 20 years, nearly two billion people will live in conditions of "absolute water scarcity."
• In the next two decades, 65 percent of the world’s population will be "water stressed."
• In the United States, 21 percent of irrigation (landscape and agricultural) will be achieved by pumping groundwater at rates that exceed the water supplies’ ability to replenish.
• Lake Meade, which supplies the city of Las Vegas with 95 percent of its water, is expected to be dry in the next four to ten years.

"These ‘factoids’ are sobering," says Klaus Reichardt, founder and CEO of Waterless Co. "But there is hope. New technologies are helping to reduce water consumption far more than thought possible a decade ago, and [development of these technologies] is likely to continue."