RE: In 20 years, water demand will exceed supply by 40 percent
You must live on the East Coast if you think scrapping over fresh water supplies is weird; here on the West Coast development has always been limited by water.
Look to Los Angeles, a onetime collection of cattle ranches transformed (briefly) into a vast agricultural paradise by "redistributing" water from much of Southern California through aqueducts and shady dealings.
Search "The Rape Of The Owens Valley" -- outright economic warfare fought in the name of watering orange groves.
(Though of course the citrus groves were just the first phase of municipal development; they justified the grid of roads and aqueducts, after which grove by grove they were bulldozed and subdivided for human industry and occupation -- the original Sim City.)
Population always expanded at the ragged limit of water supply in the Southwest, and present growth is bought entirely by efficiency and conservation measures. The gains in conservation and efficiency in the past fifty years have been radical, but at the cost of much human pain. When does anyone change unless they have to? As the world hurts so change shall follow...Ow! Stop that! You're not getting my last square yard of lawn! Leggo!
