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This is Scientific American's 60 Second Science, I'm Steve Mirsky. Got a few minutes? Today we have a special edition for each a brief interview with Scientific American editor, Steve Ashley. Steve Ashley, a lot of people are very concerned about oil right now, but out there, in the distance there is this \ looming water issue. And I mean that both senses, we have the looming August issue\ of Scientific American, and we also have a big water package on the web, tell us about that. That's right, Steve. We have been working on the coming water crisis and covering many different ways. Basically, water, which everyone takes for granted, is becoming more and more rare\, fresh water, especially, water that you can drink, potable water. And as the population grows, and people demand more \ water as their income increases. It looks like we are goanna have a dearth of water, and it's gonna get worse and worse for the next couple of decades. It looks like we are goanna spend lots of money to secure enough water that we can supply for all the people in the world. Now on the face of it seems more a policy issue than a science issue, so how does the science inform the policy? Well, the science is fairy well-known, but becomes down to applying it and applying it quickly. Basically the technology that's necessary is been developed over the years, but people have not been using it yet. And? Are we talking about recovering or ...? We are talking about whole raft of steps that need to be taken. Basically, our author for the article that we wrote for the magazine,Peter Ragger, suggests six steps, we'll say. What comes down to is a couple of things that you just wouldn't think of. First of all, we spend tremendous amount of water irrigating crops. And just getting the water to the fields, you'll lose tremendous amounts. So anything you can do to save that water, we'll have tremendous effects because it turns out that the biggest single use of water, fresh water, is crop irrigation. Secondly, one of the other problems is sort of social not the technological issue as much but a social issue. Water is basically free in most countries. If you do not pay for resources, you do not save it. A third issue is basically a sort of an art concept, something of a counting issue, actually is called virtual water. That is the water content of the products that we buy, basically the water for the crops that we grow or the water we used in factory to make a product. And instead of sending water to a dry area place, you send them to products that contain this quote "virtual water" and what that does is it means they can get along without using their own water for creating these products, so that is another issue that could help greatly. For example, the Middle East Jordan, Israel, those countries. They all take their water from Jordan River, and by shipping Jordan virtual water in terms of products. They do not have to extract so much water from the river, so that's another big issue. A fourth step that Peter Ragger suggests is to adopt what they call "low water sanitation". We use a tremendous matter of water just to get human wastes out of the home. Basically by collecting faeces and urines, separating them and then recycling \ for farm fertilization. One can save tremendous amount of water and help the agriculture at the same time. A lot of people, I mean this's a minor point of the whole thing, but I think it's gonna have to be a cultural adaptation to the idea of not flushing the toilet every time you use it. Well you know if heard it's yellow. No.. We won't get into that. Right, but that is a practice that can cut your flushes by maybe 80%. Tremendous savings. And it just goes down the drain. Literally. So what is on the website right now that is part of the overall water package that people can access just sitting right at the computer. Well, basically we have the article. We have the graphics in the article from very interesting maps that show what, potentially, will happen with climate change as incomes increase\. We have a slide show of photos, interesting photos that basically depict some of the problems with the dearth of water, the water crisis and some of the solutions, some of which I've mentioned already. We have a list of... well we have a quiz, which is just a kind of fun, what you know about saving water and turns out \ I didn't know too much bout saving water and I find it fairly \ eye-opening. So I think our readers and web people will actually find it of interest. We have a list of ways to save water and it basically \ comes down to paying attention. You know the little things like turning off the water as you're washing the dishes \ in between each dish saves tremendous amounts of water. When you are shaving, in stokes you do not have the water run. And you know, although it sounds a little idealistic. Every little step that made by a huge group of people will actually have an impact on the big problem. And over the next couple of decades, this is really going to become a major worldwide issue. First the people in the desert areas will find it happening to them. People in Las Vagus, for example, are goanna to find it's gonna get more and more difficult to gonna have that enough water they long, they're gonna have water restrictions on washing their cars since? Then depending on how climate change works as the, for example, India and China grow in terms of their income, they're gonna be demanding tremendous amounts of water right now under both of places the water tables are dropping. So they are gonna have future restrictions for those giant population who knows how that's gonna work\ out. Basically, almost everyone's gonna is be faced with this one point or another. For Scientific American's 60 Second Science, I'm Steve Mirsky.