“The view from Marine One, en route to Firebaugh, California, 2014” Peter Souza, photographer. Image: www.whitehouse.gov.

Singapore recently awarded the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize, named after the founding Minister who passed into history on March 23, to the Orange County Water District, California, for success in groundwater management and water reuse, highlighted in International Water Week, to promote contributions towards solving global water problems for the benefit of humanity. Minister Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015) co-founded the city state during independence in 1965. California continues to be challenged by drought; NASA’s Jay Famiglietti predicts reservoirs may run out of water in 2016. How can California lead the way with methods that may help other areas of the world suffering water scarcity?

Gies, Erica. “Who Owns Groundwater?” http://ensia.com/features/outlawing-water-conflict/

Schiavenza, Matt. “The Economics of California’s Drought,” March 21, 2015. The Atlantic Magazine. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/03/the-economics-of-californias-drought/388375/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/lee-kuan-yew-singapores-founding-father-dies-at-91-1427056223

http://www.siww.com.sg/laureates

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.