faucet let's ask the author of chasing water a guide to moving from scarcity to sustainability brian richter is president of sustainable waters a global education service sharing information about water scarcity water shortages and information and tools for solving water problems brian welcome thank you very much happy to be with you a citi group economist predicts that the water market will eclipse the oil market there are water hedge funds now and u.b.s. investment research calls water scarcity the defining crisis of the 21st century where here in the us a is water already most scarce and why basically any place that ends up using most or all of the available water is going to be on the brink of disaster when we get into drier times but it's certainly a much more serious issue out in the western united states and specifically the southwest so the colorado river basin the central valley of california and those are some of the places where course much of our food in this country is produced well if that's where the red light is flashing where is the yellow light flashing about water scarcity