Replacing a "meaningful percentage" of that figure – say, 20%-30% - would be enough to have a dramatic impact on securing water security for the area, says WaterFX's Mandell.
The short term benefits of this flow can secure water and ecological services for agricultural production, food security, irrigation, and flood control.
The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) is now also recommending the restoration of degraded ecosystems to secure ecosystem services, address challenges in disaster prevention, secure water supplies, improve carbon sequestration and enhance food security (Nellemann and Corcoran 2010).
To secure water for California, scientists look to the trees.
It calculates that a 30% reduction in domestic water use is needed to secure water supplies for the future.
Over many decades, the country has been tempted by grandiose, supply-oriented engineering solutions such as dam construction and water transfer tunnels to secure water supply.
"There are many techniques to secure water resources," said Masataka Murakami, of Nagoya University's Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research, who will lead one of the research teams.
Let's start with something we can all agree on – more definitely needs to be done to secure water supplies for everyone, and fast.
The Water Fund, a network of nearly 60 charter signatories, helps to secure water resources for one million people by restoring 600,000 acres of forest in northern New Mexico.
Another proposed coal power plant, which would be built near Odessa by the Summit Power Group using a cleaner type of coal technology, has also struggled to secure water.
Even as the government acts to secure water supplies, it may also be putting them in long-term jeopardy, he said.
