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How the Water System Works


We know how to produce clean water. Why don't we have enough of it?

The challenge of building and operating a water system that can supply the daily onslaught of morning flushes and showers while not flooding people who turn on their taps at low-use times is the sort of thing that keeps engineers awake at night. The Great Bath, possibly humanity’s first artificial swimming pool, in Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan Mike Goldwater / Alamy The reason to describe this long-ago city in such detail is that the technology deployed in the Indus Valley would not be surpassed, or even much changed, until just a few centuries ago. Cairo, Buenos Aires, and San Antonio; Dhaka, Istanbul, and Port-au-Prince; Miami, Manila, Monrovia, Mumbai, and Mexico City — all have greatly expanded in recent decades, and all have failed to keep up with the demand for clean, plentiful water.

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Water System Works