States. "Pretty much everywhere water is becoming scarce, you see water being shipped out of agriculture to supply cities," where water's value is typically 50 to 100 times greater than in agriculture, Postel said. In areas that share international rivers, few treaties currently exist detailing how the water should be shared. And some of these countries, such as Egypt and Ethiopia, are unilaterally pursuing major water projects that commit them to using even more water—a recipe for tension, Postel said.
Pretty much everywhere water is becoming scarce, you see water being shipped out of agriculture to supply cities, where water's value is typically 50 to 100 times greater than in agriculture. — Sandra Postel Global Water Policy Project To get more output from every liter of water extracted from nature, more efficient sprinklers and drip irrigation—a system of plastic pipes and tubes that delivers water direcdy to plant roots to eliminate evaporation and runoff losses—will have to become more widespread, Postel said. Although this technology has been shown to reduce water use by 30%-70% and increase crop yields by 20%-50%, it is only used on 1% of the world's irrigated land. The main reason for diis lack of widespread use is cost With wat"f^i* cn hf^s^/i t\T QI l ri^ifli^f^fi ppnri o m —
ics have not favored drip irrigation Postel said Thus dit tends to get used on high-value crops in areas where farmers tend to be a bit wealthier" as in Israel and California *>pttin
