The World Economic Forum, which just completed its 2016 meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last year recognized the world water crisis as the most impactful global risk.

The situation is no less complicated or critical today, with California re-evaluating its water policies and structures as a result of pervasive drought; with the mega-city Sao Paulo, Brazil, reacting to a failed municipal water system serving millions; with Flint, Mich., confronting the health consequences of a switch to its polluted river as its drinking water source; with communities in the U.S. and Europe rising up to oppose the water pollution and other destructive outcomes of hydro-fracturing; with global warming, continuing drought, polar melt, sea level rise, extreme weather, and other climate impacts affecting the stability of artisanal and industrial farmers; and with the inter-connected and ever-increasing demand for an ever-decreasing water supply worldwide dislocating communities, driving a new and disparate migrations, and creating conflict in many unexpected places between water-haves and water-have-nots.