Turning Water Into Money: The GMP/H2O Concept

Las Vegas is in the Mojave Desert--one of the driest places on the planet. Receiving about 4 inches of rain per year, some people question whether it makes sense to sustain a city whose water supply seems so uncertain. But surprisingly, Las Vegas is a model city when it comes to water conservation and is also one of the most efficient cities in converting its limited water resources into economic output.

This episode takes a "deep dive" into the economic value of water in the United States. It also discusses the concept of GMP/H2O, or the ratio of gross metropolitan product and the amount of water withdrawn by a given metro area. On a personal note, this is one of my favorite publications so far, and it was inspired by reading Freakonomics by Steven Leavitt and Stephen Dubner (check out their Freakonomics podcast) and Outliers by Malcolm Gl ...