Despite the recent rain we’ve been having in Austin, and many flash floods, it hasn’t really made much of a difference to the lake levels, it will take time for the water to work it’s way through the ground and collection systems to the lakes.

This report by the Texas Tribune highlights the current tension between Texas and Mexico over a 1944 water agreement. Things were very different back then. However, many of these issues have been well understood and behind many tensions around the world. I discussed this back in 2003 in my technology trends and direction presentation. I’d been a technology presenter at a number of science related conferences and at a couple of them heard  some really good summaries of the issues, and at another geopolitical keynote where they talked about the potential world flare-up points post 9/11. Many of those were around the availability of water.

One of the things we kicked off in IBM at the time was an “Internet of things” project. Many people were doing interesting stuff around the company and this gave it a uniting theme. The ability to monitor water flows and levels would be key, and was largely similar to a recent project on oil pipelines.

Meanwhile, over the last 10-years, for the most part the climate deniers here in Texas have largely wasted their opportunities to address seriously climate change, and water conservancy. Which makes these legal maneuvers with Mexico even more important. The current ballot in front of Texans includes Prop. 6. a constitutional amendment that would take $2 billion out of the state’s Rainy Day fund to create two accounts to help fund water projects in the state. Better late than never.