Why L.A. is a Model for 'the Future of Water Conservation'

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Water conservation is a constant challenge for Californians, but according to the New York Times’s Michael Kimmelman, there’s one city that’s doing it right: Los Angeles. Kimmelman found that L.A. has consumed less water in total since 1990 even as the city gained millions of residents. We talk with Kimmelman and California water officials about the strategies L.A. is using and what other states can learn from its example. Guests: Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic, New York Times Liz Crosson, chief sustainability, resiliency and innovation officer, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Mark Gold, board member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; adjunct professor at UCLA’s Institute for the Environment and Sustainability; former director of Water Scarcity Solutions for the Natural Resources Defense Council Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:51.0	From KQED.
1:08.6	Music From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on forum, water conservation is a constant
1:15.0	challenge for California. The latest science, according to Governor Newsom, finds hotter,
1:19.6	drier conditions could reduce the state's water supply up to 10% by 2040. But there's hope,
1:26.0	says the Times Michael Kimmelman. Los Angeles is actually using far less water now than it did decades ago, even as its population has grown dramatically. This hour, we look at the strategies L.A. is using and what other states can learn from it. Join us.
2:04.4	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Since 1990, the population of the city of Los Angeles has grown by more than half a million people.
2:13.6	And in that time, L.A.'s water usage has gone down. Not just per person, but in total, the entire city's water use has fallen dramatically.
2:19.7	So how did L.A. do it? Michael Kimmelman has taken a close look and joins us to share what he learned. He's architecture critic for the New York Times and founder and editor of
2:23.8	Headway about progress on big global challenges. His recent piece is called, For the Future of
2:29.2	Water Conservation, look to Los Angeles. Michael, welcome to forum. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. So can you put
2:37.6	some numbers on this for us? How much has water usage gone down in L.A. as the population has grown?
	...

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