How does saving water create a financial crisis for the utilities that supply it? And why do cities continue building water systems based on laws, infrastructure, and climate assumptions that are no longer relevant?

In this episode of The Water Data Podcast, Newsha Ajami joins host Veena Srinivasan to unpack the hidden risks inside modern water systems- from outdated water rights and groundwater overuse to drought, demand management, decentralised reuse, and climate resilience.

Newsha Ajami is an Iranian-American hydrologist, civil engineer, and environmental policy expert. Her work spans sustainable urban water management, the water-energy-food nexus, data science for environmental governance, and climate resilience. She is the founding director of the Governance for Risk, Resilience, and Recovery (GR3) program at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. She has also worked with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and served on utility and regulatory boards in California.

In this conversation, Newsha and Veena discuss why water law often fails to align with water science, how California’s experience with the Colorado River and Central Valley groundwater holds lessons for India, and why bringing in more surface water does not automatically solve groundwater depletion.

Newsha explains why she prefers the term “demand management” over “conservation,” how outdoor water use and lawns shape urban water demand, and why utilities often face financial stress when conservation efforts succeed.

The episode then explores decentralised wastewater reuse, comparing San Francisco’s on-site reuse model with Bengaluru’s apartment-level sewage treatment systems, emphasising how growing cities can avoid copying outdated centralised models and instead build flexible, modular, and resilient water systems.

The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water, hosted by Veena Srinivasan.

For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wdp-newsha-ajami/

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Recording by Vraj Acharya and Nabina Chakraborty. Video editing by Srisabari Varaguna Pandian. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar and Kanishka Goyal. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.