Explained | World's Water Crisis | FULL EPISODE | Netflix

Summary

The script highlights the looming global water crisis, with cities like Cape Town facing 'Day Zero' due to severe droughts. It underscores the disparity in water availability and the unsustainable use of water resources, especially in agriculture and industry. The narrative also explores the socio-economic implications of water scarcity, including potential conflicts and the debate over water as a commodity. It calls for a reevaluation of our relationship with water, emphasizing conservation and the recognition of water's true value.

Takeaways

• 💧 Access to clean water is a defining struggle in human history, with civilizations thriving or falling based on their ability to harness water.
• 🌍 Today, 70% of the world's population has access to running water, but this is threatened by looming water crises in major cities such as Cape Town, São Paulo, and others.
• 🚰 Cape Town, South Africa, is facing a severe drought that could lead to the first major city in the world to run out of water, with a plan to shut off most water taps and implement water rations.
• 🕊 The perception that water is abundant and accessible is a significant problem, as by 2040, most of the world will not have enough water to meet year-round demand.
• 🌊 Earth has a vast amount of water, but 97% is salty, and 2% is trapped in ice, leaving only 1% available for human use.
• 🏙️ Population growth and urbanization have led to increased demand for water, with cities like Mexico City facing significant challenges due to over-extraction of groundwater and sinking.
• 🌾 Agriculture and industry are the largest consumers of water, with embedded water in products often overlooked, such as the high water footprint of meat production.
• 💰 The economic model of water pricing does not reflect its true value, leading to wasteful practices and inefficient use of water resources.
• 🌱 Water scarcity is driving violent conflicts and is at the heart of ongoing conflicts in regions like Nigeria and Darfur.
• 💡 Desalination of ocean water is increasing but remains a small fraction of our water use, and the process is costly and energy-intensive.
• 🌈 Cape Town's response to the water crisis, including conservation efforts and luck with rainfall, has pushed back Day Zero and demonstrated the potential for collective action in the face of water scarcity.

Q & A

Why is the availability of clean water considered a defining struggle in human history?

Clean water availability has been a defining struggle in human history because civilizations that managed to harness water thrived, while those that failed fell. Access to water has been crucial for the development and survival of societies.

What is the current global situation regarding access to running water in homes?

Currently, seven in ten people on Earth can count on having running water in their homes, indicating that a significant portion of the global population still lacks this basic necessity.

What is 'Day Zero' and why is Cape Town associated with it?

'Day Zero' refers to the day when a city's water supply is expected to be depleted, forcing authorities to shut off most water taps. Cape Town, South Africa, is associated with it because it could become the first major city in the world to experience this due to a severe drought.

How does the perception of water as abundant contribute to the global water crisis?

The perception of water as abundant contributes to the global water crisis because it leads to overuse and wasteful practices, as people may not feel the urgency to conserve water and may take it for granted.

What is the projected global water demand by 2040?

By 2040, most of the world is projected to not have enough water to meet demand year-round, indicating an impending global water crisis due to increasing population and consumption.

Why is water considered invaluable, and how does this affect its management?

Water is considered invaluable because it is essential for life, and each person can only survive a few days without it. This affects its management because the lack of a substitute for water and its necessity for survival can lead to poor management practices and overuse.

What percentage of Earth's water is actually available for human consumption?

Only 1% of Earth's water is available for human consumption, with 97% being salty and 2% trapped in ice at the poles.

How does the use of water in agriculture and industry contribute to the global water crisis?

Agriculture and industry contribute significantly to the global water crisis as they account for the majority of freshwater use. Practices such as growing water-intensive crops in arid regions and inefficient irrigation methods exacerbate the issue.

What is the embedded water concept, and how is it related to consumer products like Coca-Cola?

Embedded water refers to the amount of water used in the production of goods and services. In the case of Coca-Cola, 98% of the water is embedded in the ingredients that were grown to make the beverage, not the water in the bottle itself.

How does the increasing demand for meat affect water consumption, and why is it a concern?

The increasing demand for meat affects water consumption because meat production, particularly beef, requires a large amount of water for feed crops like alfalfa. This is a concern because it contributes to the overuse of water resources and the depletion of aquifers.

What are some of the consequences of treating water as an abundant resource in terms of pricing and usage?

Treating water as an abundant resource leads to underpricing and wasteful usage. This can result in inefficient irrigation methods, growing water-intensive crops in arid regions, and insufficient investment in water infrastructure maintenance.

How does the privatization of water resources impact local communities and the environment?

The privatization of water resources can lead to conflicts between businesses and local communities over access to water. It may also result in environmental degradation, as seen in the case of Mexicali, where the construction of a brewery threatens to deplete the already scarce water resources.

What is the potential impact of valuing water more appropriately on agricultural practices and resource allocation?

Valuing water more appropriately could lead to more sustainable agricultural practices, such as not growing water-intensive crops in arid regions. It could also encourage more efficient use of water resources and investment in infrastructure to reduce leakages and improve distribution.

How did Cape Town's response to the threat of Day Zero demonstrate the potential for collective action in addressing the water crisis?

Cape Town's response to Day Zero showed that collective action can significantly reduce water consumption. Residents and authorities made extraordinary efforts to conserve water, which, combined with increased rainfall, helped push back Day Zero and demonstrate the potential for collective action in addressing water scarcity.

What are some of the ethical and practical challenges of pricing water as a valuable resource while ensuring universal access?

Pricing water as a valuable resource while ensuring universal access presents challenges such as potentially burdening the poor, who may not be able to afford higher water costs. It also raises ethical questions about how to balance the need for conservation with the human right to water and sanitation.

Outlines

00:00

💧 Global Water Crisis and the Threat of Day Zero

The script begins by highlighting the ease of access to clean water in modern society and how it has been a critical factor in the rise and fall of civilizations. It emphasizes the looming global water crisis, with cities like Cape Town facing the unprecedented situation of 'Day Zero,' where water supplies are expected to be completely shut off due to severe drought. The narrator points out that many major cities worldwide are at risk of their own Day Zero within the coming decades if water usage does not change drastically. The script also touches on the perception of water abundance and the reality of its scarcity, with only 1% of Earth's water being accessible for human use. The segment ends with a call to action to recognize the true value of water before it's too late.

05:00

🌐 The Impact of Overconsumption and Mismanagement

This paragraph delves into the consequences of overconsumption and the unsustainable extraction of groundwater, exemplified by Mexico City's sinking due to excessive groundwater withdrawal. It discusses the alarming rate at which aquifers are being depleted, not just in Mexico but also in India, and the increased water consumption driven by population growth and climate change. The script points out that a significant portion of water is used in agriculture and industry, with embedded water in products like Coca-Cola and the 'water footprint' of everyday items like cotton shirts and meat. It criticizes the current pricing models that do not reflect the true cost of water, leading to wasteful practices and the potential privatization of water resources by corporations, hinting at a future where water could become a commodity with significant economic and social implications.

10:03

🏭 The Competition for Scarce Water Resources

The third paragraph examines the intensifying competition for water as scarcity becomes more prevalent. It presents the case of Mexicali, where a deal with a major brewery raises questions about the allocation of water resources, especially when the city's main water source, the Colorado River, is already under stress. The script explores the conflict between the needs of agriculture, industry, and the environment, and how governments are often tasked with making difficult decisions that can lead to social unrest. It also touches on the role of multinational corporations in water acquisition and the potential for water scarcity to fuel violent conflicts, as seen in regions like Nigeria and Syria. The paragraph ends by considering the possibility of creating new water sources through desalination, though it acknowledges the high costs and energy requirements of this process.

15:04

🌍 Balancing Water Conservation with Access as a Human Right

The final paragraph addresses the challenge of valuing water as an invaluable resource while ensuring universal access to it as a human right. It discusses the social and economic impacts of raising water prices, particularly on the poor, and the need for innovative solutions that balance conservation with affordability. The script highlights examples such as Philadelphia's experiment with income-based water pricing and Cape Town's successful efforts in reducing water consumption to avoid Day Zero. It concludes with a reflection on the importance of recognizing water's value and the collective responsibility to manage it sustainably, emphasizing individual actions and societal awareness as key components in addressing the water crisis.

Keywords

💡Day Zero

Day Zero refers to the predicted day when a city's water supply would be depleted, forcing authorities to shut off water taps. In the video, Cape Town is highlighted as being the first major city to face this threat, with severe implications for its residents and the city's infrastructure. The term is central to the video's theme of water scarcity and the urgent need for conservation.

💡Water scarcity

Water scarcity is a situation where the availability of water is insufficient to meet the demands of the population. The video discusses how various cities around the world, including Cape Town, São Paulo, and London, are at risk of experiencing Day Zero due to water scarcity. This concept is integral to the video's exploration of the global water crisis and the challenges it poses to urban areas.

💡Aquifer

An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials from which groundwater can be extracted. The video mentions aquifers in the context of Mexico City, where over-extraction is causing the city to sink and its water supply to dwindle. The term is key to understanding the unsustainable use of groundwater resources.

💡Water conservation

Water conservation involves the responsible use of water to prevent waste and ensure sustainability. The video showcases Cape Town's efforts to push back Day Zero through water conservation measures, which significantly reduced the city's water consumption. This concept is a central solution proposed in the video to combat water scarcity.

💡Embedded water

Embedded water, also known as virtual water, is the amount of water used in the production of goods and services. The video uses the example of a bottle of Coca-Cola, where 98% of the water is the embedded water in the ingredients, not the liquid in the bottle itself. This concept is crucial for understanding the indirect water consumption in our daily lives and the need for more efficient water use in production processes.

💡Desalination

Desalination is the process of removing salts and other minerals from saline water to produce fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. The video discusses the growth of desalination as a response to water scarcity but also notes its limitations due to high costs and energy requirements. This term is relevant to the video's exploration of potential solutions to the global water crisis.

💡Water footprint

A water footprint is the total volume of water used to produce the goods and services consumed by an individual, community, or business. The video illustrates this with examples such as the water required for a cup of coffee or a cotton shirt. Understanding water footprints is essential for recognizing the broader impact of our consumption habits on water resources.

💡Water rights

Water rights are legal rights or privileges that govern the use of water in a particular area. The video touches on conflicts arising from water rights, such as the protests against the brewery in Mexicali, where water rights were granted to a corporation, potentially at the expense of local farmers and residents. This concept is important for understanding the social and economic implications of water allocation.

💡Water infrastructure

Water infrastructure encompasses the systems and facilities responsible for the supply of water, such as pipes, treatment plants, and distribution networks. The video points out the issue of leaking pipes in Mexico City, which wastes a significant portion of the city's drinking water. The state of water infrastructure is a critical factor in the efficiency and sustainability of water supply.

💡Water as a human right

The concept that access to water and sanitation is a fundamental human right, as recognized by the UN in 2010. The video discusses the challenges of balancing the need to value water as a resource with the obligation to ensure everyone has access to it. This concept is central to the ethical and social dimensions of the water crisis.

💡Water pricing

Water pricing refers to the methods and strategies used to determine the cost of water for consumers. The video mentions experiments in Philadelphia with income-based water pricing to ensure basic human needs are met while encouraging conservation. Understanding water pricing is important for exploring economic strategies to promote sustainable water use.

Highlights

Access to clean water is a defining struggle in human history, with civilizations thriving or falling based on their ability to harness water.

Seven in ten people globally have access to running water, but this perception of abundance masks a looming global water crisis.

Cape Town, South Africa, faces the unprecedented situation of potentially becoming the first major city to run out of water, with Day Zero looming due to severe drought.

The narrative highlights other major cities at risk of their own Day Zero, indicating a widespread and imminent crisis.

By 2040, water demand is expected to outstrip supply for most of the world, emphasizing the urgency of the situation.

Despite Earth's abundance of water, only 1% is accessible fresh water, with the majority trapped in ice or the ocean.

Population distribution is closely tied to proximity to freshwater sources, with 90% living within 10 km of such sources.

The historical example of Mexico City illustrates the transformation from a lake-filled landscape to a water-stressed metropolis.

Groundwater extraction, likened to using a savings account, is being depleted faster than it can be naturally replenished.

The transcript discusses the environmental impact of excessive groundwater extraction, including land subsidence in Mexico City.

Increased water consumption, driven by population growth and changing consumption patterns, is straining water resources.

Agriculture and industry are the largest consumers of water, with embedded water in food and products often overlooked.

The cost of water is not reflected in the price of goods, leading to undervaluation and wasteful practices.

Water scarcity is driving conflict and competition, with governments and corporations vying for control of this vital resource.

Desalination is presented as a potential solution, but its high cost and energy requirements limit its widespread adoption.

The transcript explores the social and economic implications of valuing water properly, including the potential for higher costs of living and industry.

Cape Town's response to the threat of Day Zero demonstrates the power of conservation and collective action in averting a crisis.

The narrative concludes with a call to recognize the value of water before scarcity forces drastic measures, emphasizing individual and collective responsibility.

Transcripts

[narrator] Turn on a faucet and clean water rushes out,

as much as we want, anytime we want.

It's easy to forget that the quest for this

has been one of the defining struggles of human history.

Civilizations that harnessed water, thrived.

The ones that failed... fell.

Today, seven in ten people on Earth

can count on having running water in their homes.

[man] The water flows from the risers to connecting mains,

and finally through service connections into each building on the street.

[narrator] At least, so they think.

Cape Town. It could become the first major city in the world

to run out of water.

Cape Town, South Africa, is inching closer now to Day Zero.

Just 92 days away from having to shut off most water taps

because of a severe drought.

[narrator] Cape Town is the first major city in the world

to plan to indefinitely shut off its water supply.

Four million people would stop getting running water.

They'd get water rations,

and they'd need to line up at city water stations to get it.

And it's not just Cape Town.

São Paulo, Melbourne, Jakarta, London,

Beijing, Istanbul, Tokyo, Bangalore,

Barcelona and Mexico City

will all face their own Day Zero in the next few decades,

unless their water use radically changes.

There are perceptions that it is there in bountiful amounts

and everyone has access to it because you can turn a tap,

and that's a big problem.

[narrator] In fact, by 2040

most of the world won't have enough water to meet demand year-round.

We're facing a global water crisis and it's getting worse.

We're at a real inflection point where, if we're not careful,

we may actually get out ahead of our ability to manage it.

[narrator] There's no substitute for water.

Each of us will die in just a few days without it.

How have we built a world

where we don't have enough of its most valuable resource?

And as this crisis grows,

what will the new world look like?

[man] Waterways, built by the people

to free the land of the tyranny of nature.

For some investors, what they see in this glass

is liquid gold.

Clean water. Now.

[crowd chants]

-[in Spanish] In defense of water. -[man 2] Water becomes a commodity.

It takes on new value.

People claim it, haul it, treasure it.

[man 3] Dare we take our water supply for granted as we do the air we breathe?

[narrator] Earth is the blue planet.

There's no shortage of water. We have 326 million trillion gallons of it.

Always have, always will.

Water may freeze into ice or evaporate into air,

but it doesn't leave our planet.

If you sucked up all the water on Earth, it would fit into this sphere.

But 97% of it is salty and 2% is trapped in ice at the poles,

so all of humankind relies on just 1% of that water to survive.

When people talk about running out of water,

what they really mean is,

do they have access to that very small percentage?

[narrator] And the answer depends a lot on where you live.

Kuwait is one of the poorest countries in terms of water per capita,

and Canada, one of the richest, doesn't have twice as much

or even ten times as much. It has 10,000 times as much.

But it also matters where the water is.

That 1% of Earth's water that we all rely on,

most of it is underground and really difficult and expensive to get to,

so humans have mostly settled close to surface water, like rivers and lakes.

Around 90% of the world's population

lives less than ten kilometers from a freshwater source.

Hundreds of years ago, when the Aztecs settled on what is now Mexico City,

they saw a giant lake.

These are the last remnants of the canals they made.

When the Spanish came in the 16th century,

one soldier marveled at the Aztec city rising from the water

that seemed like an enchanted vision.

But then the Spanish started draining the lake,

and over the next few centuries that space was filled by people.

Like in most places, surface water in Mexico

was treated as a public resource, key to development.

And since 1950, Mexico City's population has exploded.

It's now home to 22 million people.

I would say some of the most important threats

for Mexico City are related to water.

[narrator] Mexico City gets more rain than notoriously rainy London.

But the lakes that would have collected that water are long gone,

so the city floods.

But they still need to pipe in

most of their water from other parts of Mexico.

Or they pump it from underground.

We've gotten a lot better at accessing groundwater.

But there's a catch.

Those water deposits, called aquifers, have accumulated over millennia

and they'll take millennia to fill back up.

Groundwater is sort of like the savings account,

which it's fine to draw on sometimes, especially when you have a drought.

[narrator] That's not what Mexico City's been doing.

We take out from the local aquifer around 50% of our water supply.

That means that probably we'll lose half of our supply of water

in the next 30-50 years.

[narrator] Sucking up that groundwater has another side effect.

It compresses the soil.

Mexico City is literally sinking.

In some places, as much as nine inches a year.

NASA satellite data shows aquifers in northern India

decreasing by 29 trillion gallons in just a decade.

There are simply more people on Earth consuming more water.

This century, water consumption has increased sevenfold.

And the rain and snow that we count on to water crops and refill lakes and rivers

is getting less reliable.

[Otto] Climate change is making available water much more erratic.

We're seeing areas around the world

that are experiencing much more extended dry periods.

[narrator] But the problem isn't just that there's more people on Earth using water,

it's how we're using water.

Humans need to drink almost a gallon of water per day.

Brushing your teeth, washing your hands typically uses about a gallon.

[flushes]

There goes three gallons.

But the drinking, washing and toilet flushing

of every person on Earth only accounts for 8% of our freshwater use each year.

Most of the water goes to agriculture and industry,

and into the food and products we use.

Let's take a bottle of Coca-Cola.

98% of the water in that bottle

is not what you see in that bottle.

98% of the water is actually embedded in all the ingredients that were grown

to make that bottle of Coca-Cola.

[narrator] 74 liters of water goes into every glass of beer.

A cup of coffee? 130 liters.

Each of your cotton shirts - 2,500 liters.

But nothing has as much embedded water as meat.

Alfalfa is a common ingredient in cattle feed,

and growing a kilogram of it takes 510 liters of water.

An average cow consumes about 12 kilograms of feed a day.

Divided up,

just one quarter-pound hamburger takes around 1,650 liters of water to produce.

The world is eating more and more like Americans.

Higher calorie diets with more meat.

But everyone can't eat like Americans.

There actually isn't enough water in the world.

Water doesn't abide by some of the basic rules of capitalism.

Farmers hardly pay anything for it.

So the true cost of water doesn't end up in the cost of the burger.

Which is why those fast food places can offer you bargain burgers.

[man 1] How can it be 99 cents?

[man 2] For only 2.99. You heard right: 2.99.

[narrator] In most places in the world,

water is treated and priced like there will always be enough of it.

So we end up using it in absurdly wasteful ways.

Arid Southern California uses over two trillion gallons of water a year

to grow alfalfa, which they get from the Colorado River,

hundreds of miles away.

The amount they pay for it doesn't even cover the cost of delivery.

Just a fraction of the water used by South Africa's wine industry

would be enough for Cape Town's taps.

India and China both grow their most water-intensive crops

in some of their driest regions.

But as water gets more scarce, that may change.

The bank Goldman Sachs predicted that water would be

the petroleum of the 21st century.

And private interests, like hedge funds, have started buying up water,

prompting fears that they'll take advantage of scarcity to turn a profit.

And if that sounds like a villain's plot in a James Bond movie,

that's because it was.

As of this moment,

my organization owns more than 60% of Bolivia's water supply.

This contract states that your new government...

will use us as utilities provider.

[narrator] But putting a higher price on water might have benefits.

The benefit of valuing water as we should

and sending, you know, a price signal,

is that we wouldn't be growing alfalfa in the desert.

[narrator] Remember that point. It'll be important later.

We wouldn't be growing crops that don't make sense in really arid places.

Because the economics of it wouldn't make sense.

[narrator] And 95% of the irrigated farmland in the world

probably wouldn't use the most inefficient irrigation method...

just flooding the fields.

And if water had a higher price,

governments might decide it's worth the money

to repair our water infrastructure.

[Kramer] We are not investing the financial resources needed

to make a good maintenance of the system.

One critical result of this is that we have 42% of leakages

in the water network.

[narrator] Mexico City, which is facing an existential water crisis,

loses close to half of its drinking water to leaky pipes.

We value water so little,

we dump two million tons

of sewage and agricultural and industrial waste into it every day.

There's no sense of value

to what is really an incredibly invaluable resource in water.

But then when we run out, we find what the cost of water truly is.

[yelling]

[speaking Spanish]

[narrator] In 2017,

the city of Mexicali finalized a deal with Constellation Brands,

the maker of Modelo and Corona beers,

to construct a brewery.

It would be the biggest investment the region had seen in years,

creating 750 permanent jobs.

And, in exchange, the brewery was guaranteed a lot of water.

But Mexicali doesn't have a lot of water to spare.

Its main water source is the Colorado River,

which starts in Colorado, in the U.S.

Fed by melting snow in the Rocky Mountains,

warmer temperatures in recent years have meant less snow,

which means less river.

You can tell how much less by that big bathtub ring.

The river flows south, quenching a few American cities along the way,

like Denver, Salt Lake City,

Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Oh, and almost six million acres of farmland.

By the time the Colorado River reaches Mexicali,

it looks like this.

[man, in Spanish] It's been a long time since we've had enough water.

If the brewery settles in and starts producing,

in a few years, we'll run out of underground water.

[in Spanish] The farmers are the ones who get the worst of it.

[in Spanish] They need 20 million cubic meters per year.

If we compare that to, say, cities such as Ensenada,

which need nine million cubic meters, it's more than double.

More than double of a city.

[narrator] The more scarce water gets, more access to it becomes a competition,

with winners and losers,

often with governments picking.

In July 2018,

the federal government of Mexico issued a decree

making it easier for businesses like Constellation Brands

to extract surface water all around the country.

[in Spanish] We see this as a stick-up.

It's also a warning

not only for the Mexican people but the entire world.

We know that many other parts of the world

are fighting against these privatization projects

that line the companies' pockets.

[narrator] In January 2018,

protesters tried to physically block the construction

of the brewery's aqueduct.

[in Spanish] The entire group of policemen came through that road in the front.

They came here with their protective shields, in a single file.

She's the lady that shows up in the video holding a pipe.

[in Spanish] But we have to defend our water.

Because it's a vital liquid.

It's the most important thing we have right now.

[narrator] Water scarcity is increasingly driving violent conflict around the world.

My personal experiences of where this has been dire

have been in northeast Nigeria.

As we saw over the years of the drying up of Lake Chad

so did livelihoods dry up. And that tension really did erupt

in a way in which governments could no longer contain it.

[narrator] Water scarcity is at the heart of the ongoing conflict in Darfur

which, since 2003, has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

And some analysts say the Syrian civil war

was caused in large part by a severe drought in 2006.

As tensions rise over freshwater,

governments are increasingly eyeing an idea that was once far-fetched.

Creating more of it.

Desalination of ocean water has more than doubled over the last decade

but the amount we make a year

still adds up to less than 1% of the water we use.

We've been waiting for the holy grail of breakthrough in how expensive it is

to desalinate water, that is to take ocean or brackish water

that has a lot of salts in it, from underground,

and treat it to drinking-water standards.

That takes a lot of money and it takes a huge amount of energy right now.

[narrator] That would make more sense if water was more valuable.

But that would also mean the water in everything would cost more.

The price of consumer goods would skyrocket.

Some industries might collapse.

Companies like Constellation Brands might make different decisions

about where they set up their operations.

Because remember...

The benefit of valuing water as we should

and sending, you know, a price signal,

is that we wouldn't be growing alfalfa in the desert.

[narrator] Growing cattle feed in the desert.

That's what the Mena family does.

And if water suddenly became the next petroleum,

they'd be out of a living, too.

The thing is, water isn't like petroleum.

Or any other commodity on Earth, for that matter.

Because without water, we die.

In 2010, the UN recognized access to water and sanitation as a human right.

And that's the challenge of our water crisis.

How are you supposed to value an invaluable resource

while ensuring everybody has it?

When the price of water is raised, to fix pipes or encourage conservation,

it has the greatest impact on the poor.

Sydney water is pushing for a 15% hike over four years,

putting more pressure on family budgets.

This drive for water conservation, water saving,

is now a burden that poor people must carry.

Living on a fixed income, I cannot afford any of this.

[narrator] It might be that we don't end up treating all water equally.

We know that there is a certain percentage of water,

it's around 60 liters per day per person,

that is associated with human rights issues,

but above that, people should pay for water.

[narrator] In 2017,

Philadelphia started experimenting with tying water prices to income.

We need to price it in such a way

that we protect basic human needs.

[narrator] The fact that we all need water makes this crisis exceptionally hard.

But it can also inspire people to act in exceptional ways to solve it.

Cape Town's Day Zero was first scheduled for March 18.

But then people started conserving.

The water restrictions are clearly having some effect.

Day Zero has been pushed back by a month.

[woman] Cape Town announced it pushed back Day Zero until July 9th.

Authorities expect Day Zero, as it's been dubbed,

to take place at the end of August instead of July.

Now, that's since been pushed back to next year,

thanks to extraordinary efforts of residents and authorities.

[narrator] By early 2018, the city's water consumption

was less than half what it had been just four years earlier,

and the Day Zero countdown clock was paused indefinitely.

Not enough action was taken until they started talking about Day Zero.

That really got people's attention.

And it was remarkable,

between the time that the city started to talk about Day Zero

and, a month later, how much people cut back their water use.

And it goes to show what we can do.

[narrator] But Cape Town also got lucky.

It rained.

The trick is recognizing how valuable water is before there isn't enough of it,

and remembering that our fates are tied to what rushes out of our taps.

[Kramer] Mexico City was founded within a lake.

But today our relation with water is very distant.

It's very important to recover our historical consciousness with water.

There are many actions individuals can take in order to save water,

but also to be aware that water has a value.