“I’m a man on a mission,” says Seth Siegel, author of the newly released Let There be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press). “My goal is to raise consciousness about the danger of not having a plan to address the coming water crisis. Hundreds of millions of people could find themselves without adequate water in just a few years, and this is not as high a priority as it should be.”
The New York columnist, entrepreneur, branding guru and Broadway producer was surprised to discover the best working model of a water master plan in Israel.
Despite its desert terrain, rapid population growth and meager rainfall, Israel currently boasts a water surplus. It shares water with Jordan and the Palestinian-administered territories in the West Bank and Gaza. It exports water technologies worth $2.2 billion and growing.
Among Israel’s groundbreaking products and policies are drip irrigation and “fertigation,” dual-flush toilets, seawater desalination, advanced wastewater treatment and reuse, free-market pricing of water, drought-resistant seeds, cutting-edge metering and leak-detection systems, conservation education and precision agriculture.
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