Scientifically speaking, I guess you'd need about 60 articles or so all pointing to the data and forecasting water woes country wide in order for it to be a trend.Still, water news tends to run dry (heh) right about this time of year and yet I keep seeing articles like this, and this.
When water scientists are talking shortage forecast, without raising alarm bells, they are typically looking at a multi-decadal planning horizon that takes net population increase trend lines (and therefore water consumption trend lines right along with trend lines for increasing efficiency) into account. Gotta make the argument here (which is probably why I'm not an Urban Geographer); if no new resources can be brought online, and increasing efficiency standards can't meet demand, why would city planners keep trying to bring in more population to increase the city's tax base? Money can buy water, it's just that to engineer your way to a solution could take more than most people are willing to shell out for.
And while you can raise the price of gas and milk and most people won't tear their hair out, I know for a fact that politics gets real ugly, real quick, when managers start seriously considering jacking up the price of water to pay for public waterworks to increase supply. Some congress-critter with a smarmy smile and greased back hair will claim his respectable opponent wants to force little old ladies on short budgets to die of dehydration in order to line the pockets of his friendly neighborhood construction company.
