PERSPECTIVES
My name is Samantha Shaver, and I am from New Mexico. I am 15 years old and I am starting 10th grade in the Fall at Rio Rancho High School. When I am not at school or playing soccer, I like to spend time with my friends, volunteer at the New Mexico Natural History Museam as a Junior Docent, and referee soccer games. In college, I want to study to be either an Environmental Engineer or a Civil Engineer.
Tell us what the water concern in your country is!Living in America, it is hard to understand what difficulties people in other countries have to endure to have fresh water, but there is also water scarcity in the United States. I have seen the water levels of many rivers and lakes in the Southwest drop drastically just in my life time. For example, New Melones Lake in California is being drained at seemingly impossible rates. We drive past this lake every year during our family trip to California, and just since 2012, the water level has dropped almost 1.5 million acre feet. Just because drought in America may not be as obvious as it is in other parts of the world, even in the United States, we are still running out of fresh water.
From where comes your interest in water?I'm from New Mexico where water is an extremely scarce resource because we live in the desert. For the entirety of my life, I have lived in drought. When I came across the idea of Aquaponics, I wanted to compare it to conventional agriculture to see if it would be a more water efficient way of farming.
Programme manager ania.andersch@siwi.org +46 8 121 360 59
