"So one of the things that we find about water is that it's really under-institutionalized. I mean the UN plays a big role, and there's actually a big UN Groundwater meeting coming up in Paris at the end of the year, and sometimes these agencies don't really have the teeth to get things done. And I think that although a lot of the work that I do is related directly to climate, I think water sort of takes a backseat to broader climate change issues and carbon issues. So I think that, in general, there's a great willingness to work together across countries, internationally on water management, and on securing our global water futures jointly. There's a great willingness, but it's sort of under-institutionalized. And actually I just yesterday finished a proposal and submitted it to try to mitigate that, to address that situation by putting in a proposal to form basically a global groundwater coalition, that is a team of experts that could become not a governing body, but maybe the go-to body for global groundwater policy."

Jay Famiglietti is a hydrologist, a professor and the Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, where he holds the Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing. He is also the Chief Scientist of the Silicon Valley tech startup, Waterplan. Before moving to Saskatchewan, he served as the Senior Water Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.  From 2013 through 2018, he was appointed  by Governor Jerry Brown to the California State Water Boards. He has appeared on CBS News 60 Minutes, on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, as a featured expert in water documentaries including Day Zero and Last Call at the Oasis, and across a host of international news media. He is the host of the podcast What About Water?

https://jayfamiglietti.com

What About Water? podcast with Jay Famiglietti

Twitter @WhatAboutWater

GIWS https://water.usask.ca

www.waterplan.com

www.oneplanetpodcast.org

www.creativeprocess.info