Fewer drops to drink
As John Briscoe tells the story, it was President John F. Kennedy who got Harvard water experts involved in Pakistan’s agricultural crisis in the 1960s. When Pakistan’s president complained about that arid nation’s water problems, Kennedy, looking for a way to help that didn’t involve military commitments, said, “I think we have some guys up in Cambridge who can help you.” In response to Kennedy’s call, the renowned Harvard Water Program applied scientific analysis, supplemented with an interdisciplinary understanding of economics, policy, and politics, to come up with a solution that worked for Pakistan: using groundwater to augment the river water already transported through canals. Today, as world leaders cast worried eyes on forecasts of increasingly strained fresh water supplies, there again are experts in Cambridge who can help, and who are already tackling some key challenges. In fact, Harvard has an array of programs and laboratories pointed at aspects of this critical...