Over 1 billion people in the world still lack access to adequate drinking water and not many people know how to address the problem.

On Oct. 15, Laguna welcomed Buzz Thompson, the founding Director of Stanford Law School Environmental & Natural Resources Program to give his talk “Water as a Public Commodity.”

“Water is incredibly important…throughout the world,” said Mr. Thompson.

He went on to describe his three “visions” on how to address these water challenges in the world. His visions included water as a public trust, water as a human right, and water as commodity.

“In order to address the water challenges you have to think of water as all three of those things and harmonize the ideas,” said Mr. Thompson.

He explained the main water issues in California and throughout the world, which included the shrinking water supplies, loss of fish habitats, groundwater over-drafting, and a great portion of the World’s population lacking acceptable water supplies.

“The problem with water is that it is not always where we want it, and it comes when we don’t need it.”

Mr. Thompson also talked about the two kinds of water scarcity: physical scarcity and economic scarcity.

He referred the Institutes of Justinian, which states water as a human right by the law of nature. “We need to protect our water.

Thinking about water as a commodity can actually help us think of water as a pubic trust and a human right.”

After sharing tactics that have already proven successful in addressing these water issues in Mozambique and their urban water markets, he opened his presentation up for Q&A.

Following a hearty round of applause, conversations continued as joined he joined the audience for refreshments.