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Reviving a Parched Land

Jeremy Quittner

By Jeremy Quittner

Reviving a Parched Land

The Southeast is struggling with the worst drought some say the region has seen in 100 years. Farms and cities alike have been dealing with the lack of water since about 2006. Today, areas of severe water shortage stretch from Virginia and Tennessee through the Carolinas on into Alabama and Georgia. Georgia has been particularly hard hit. In 2007, Atlanta's main reservoir, Lake Lanier, was just a few months away from drying up. But an agricultural area in southeast Georgia, called the Flint River Basin, which uses about a third of the state's irrigation water, has been at the forefront of water-saving technology. There, entrepreneurs and researchers are teaming up to save the state's $12 billion agricultural industry, which depends on cotton, soybeans, peanuts, pecans, and peaches.