What happens when the Rio Grande dries up?

The river is often overshadowed, at least in the US, by the Colorado River. But the Rio Grande creates the border between US and Mexico, and the water that flows through it is at the center of a looming geopolitical crisis. So what happens when towns, farms and cities on both sides of the border start to run out of water?

Guests:

• Naveena Sadasivam: staff writer at the Texas Observer covering the environment, energy and climate and co-author on the series Shallow Waters
• Zoë Schlanger: staff writer at Quartz covering the environment, and co-author on the series Shallow Waters
• Flavio Lehner: Climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research
• Alfredo Rodríguez-Pineda: Water program coordinator at the WWF

Further Reading:

• Shallow Waters: In a warming world, the fight for water can push nations apart—or bring them together
• Shallow Waters: The US-Mexico border wall’s dangerous, costly side-effect: enormous floods
• Shallow Waters: Trump’s border wall could decimate these rare species
• Shallow Waters: There’s a time bomb for US-Mexico relations ticking underground
• Shallow Waters: One of the fastest-growing regions of the US could run out of water
• Shallow Waters: How Anglo farmers brought an end to Latino ranching in the Rio Grande Valley
• Shallow Waters: North America hasn’t had a megadrought in recorded history. It could be overdue
• Shallow Waters: Dams and reservoirs can’t save us. This is the new future of water infrastructure.
• Shallow Waters: A major US city will start drinking its own sewage. Others need to follow.
• Climate Change on the Rio Grande
• Assessing climate change impacts on water availability of snowmelt-dominated basins of the Upper Rio Grande basin
• Assessing recent declines in Upper Rio Grande runoff efficiency from a paleoclimate perspective
• Lower Rio Grande Basin Study
• Rain-Fed Farms: Harnessing the Power of Precipitation
• The Rio Chonchos: A Preliminary Overview
• Possible Scenarios of Impacts of Climatic Change on Potential Evapotranspiration in the Watershed of the Conchos River, Mexico
• Integrated river basin management in the Conchos River basin, Mexico: A case
• study of freshwater climate change adaptation

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.

If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.

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That’s all for this future, come back next time and we’ll travel to a new one.

Flash Forward is a critically acclaimed podcast about the future.

In each episode, host Rose Eveleth takes on a possible (or not so possible) future scenario — everything from the existence of artificial wombs, to what would happen if space pirates dragged a second moon to Earth. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a black market for fecal transplants? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) By combining audio drama and deep reporting, Flash Forward gives listeners an original and unique window into the future, how likely different scenarios might be, and how to prepare for what might come.