Parts of the U.S. will encounter severe water shortages as the climate warms and population grows.

Making rational use of the world’s scarce supplies of freshwater is one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century. Here in the United States, three separate dilemmas confront us: the amount of water we use, the speed with which our population is growing, and the severity of the impact of climate change. As we show in this slideshow, in places like Florida, the arid Southwest, and the agricultural heartland, all three of these pressures will coincide to alarming effect. Fortunately there are also solutions: a creative mix of efficiency, technology, and altered consumption habits that is sometimes likened to the creation of a "virtual river."

Click on "More Photos" to launch the slideshow.