A growing international water crisis is forcing governments to rethink how they value and use and manage water, especially because economic development hinges on water availability. Freshwater resources Drinking water supplies, agriculture, energy production and generation, mining and industry all require large quantities of water. In the future, these sectors will be competing for increasingly limited freshwater resources, making water supply availability a major economic driver in the 21st century. By 2025 more than half the nations in the world will face freshwater stress or shortages and by 2050 as much as 75 percent of the world's population could face freshwater scarcity. So say Mike Hightower and Suzanne Pierce, water experts at Sandia National Laboratories, in an article they wrote that appeared in Nature. Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory. What can be done to help solve the water dilemma? The answer is not simple and will involve usage of all water sources