The State of Water
Water is central to life and fresh water is abundant.
Fresh water is regularly replenished by rainfall and collects in river basins.
Capturing clean fresh water and delivering it to the people is a transportation challenge.
Half of Earth’s available clean water is located in only eight countries while 85% of the world’s population lives on the dry half of the planet.
Most of the Earth’s population relies on rivers as their main source of water.
Over the course of history, most cities have formed in areas with secure supplies of fresh water.
As the world’s population moves beyond 7.7 billion today and cities grow around the world, rivers alone can no longer support the full population of many cities.
Man-made lakes called reservoirs have been built over the last century to hold back water from the rivers using dams.
Unfortunately, much of the water collected in reservoirs is lost to evaporation.
Snapshot: Texas
This map shows the differences in precipitation across the state of Texas.
Desert regions like west Texas receive very little rainfall every year.
Differences in rainfall between regions do not always match the regions’ water needs.
Cities such as El Paso in west Texas are at risk of running out of water without thorough water security planning.
El Paso also relies on water from the Rio Grande. Unfortunately, much of the Rio Grande’s water is used or otherwise lost in Colorado and New Mexico before reaching El Paso in Texas.
Desert regions like west Texas also lose tremendous amounts of water to evaporation.
Low precipitation rates and high evaporation rates can quickly lead to water shortages in regions without stable sources of fresh water.
Networking the Earth's Rivers
Our goal is to network all the major rivers from the southern Mississippi River to the West Coast.
With ZoomHydro networking America’s rivers, it would be possible to quickly and efficiently move water between regions. This would protect against water shortages in every networked region across the country.