A 7-year pilot project in the 12,000-acre Pleasant Valley subwatershed of the Pecatonica River in southwestern Wisconsin has helped to reduce the amount of phosphorus and sediment entering the river after major storms by more than a third. The project involved changing practices on just ten of the valley’s sixty-one farms. Certain practices, such as reducing tillage and planting crops that leave more residue to protect the soil, caused the estimated annual amounts of phosphorus and sediment entering the river to drop by 4,400 pounds and 1,300 tons, respectively.

Since 2011, the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins decreased in volume by four trillion gallons of water each year (fifteen cubic kilometers). This is more water than California’s thirty-eight million residents use each year for domestic and municipal purposes. About two-thirds of the loss is due to depletion of groundwater beneath California’s Central Valley. It will take about eleven trillion gallons of water (forty-two cubic kilometers) — around 1.5 times the maximum volume of the largest U.S. reservoir — to recover from California’s continuing drought, according to a new analysis of NASA satellite data.

Between 30 and 50 percent of Europe’s drinking water are being lost every year due to pipe leakages. Norwegian researchers have developed an inspection methodology for water distribution grids. A long, torpedo-like and propeller-driven robot is guided through the water and district heating pipe systems. It is equipped with sixty-four large ultrasound transducers which transmit and receive ultrasound signals. It collects data which enable us calculate the thickness of, and levels of corrosion in, the pipes.

Approximately one-third of the United States is in at least a moderate state of drought. Exacerbating the drought is a rapidly increasing population. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the country’s population will balloon from nearly 310 million in 2010 to more than 420 million in 2060. Experts say that current levels of water consumption cannot continue. One expert says that seasonally adjusted increasing block rates could be the answer. In short, people who use more water, pay more.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has begun digging in the area around Golden Gate Park with the intention of adding local underground water flows to the traditionally sourced water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite. The change is expected to take place over the next two years and will replace between 10 to 15 percent of the water supply. Despite the fact that the water is less pure, city officials expect that difference will be negligible.

Investors looking for promising growth markets would do well to consider their water bill. Water’s artificially low price in most of the United States is one factor holding back innovative new water technologies, according to the report – but the time is right for change. Across the West, drought has left wide swaths of agricultural land brown, with massive wildfires raging through tinder-dry forests, residential wells tapped out and unemployed farm workers crowding food pantries. The drought is projected to cost the agricultural sector about $2.2 billion in 2014. The social and ecological damage is also profound. Technological innovation in the water sector could bring a raft of benefits ranging from the conservation of scarce water supplies to the expansion of water supplies through technologies that recycle or desalinate, for example.

California’s rainy season tends to run from October to late March, but for the third year in a row rain has been relatively absent, meaning that the state is currently suffering from a severe, unprecedented drought. With increasing water rates, a growing number of homeowners in Southern California are relying on greywater systems to support their landscapes and toilet flushing. “If the drought continues, honestly, I could see all new construction will have greywater systems of some kind because it really doesn’t make sense to put usable water in the sewer system,” says one expert.

The boom in oil and gas produced through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is seen as a boon for meeting U.S. energy needs. But one byproduct of the process is millions of gallons of water that’s much saltier than seawater, after leaching salts from rocks deep below the surface. Study shows electrodialysis can provide cost-effective treatment of salty water from fracked wells.

Since January, a number of California communities in the Central Valley have been experiencing such extreme drought that they have been placed on a “critical water systems” list — a ranking indicating that the areas could run completely dry within sixty days. Many of these areas have had wells dried up since July.