"There is no one-size-fits-all approach that can help to approach the many aspects of dealing with water challenges," Huang added.
"Purpose and profit in the water industry have been bedfellows for 1,000 years," said Matthew Diserio, Water Asset Management's president.Sciens Capital Management in New York started working on bringing together the tens of thousands of smaller utility businesses in the United States eight years ago, and closed its Water Opportunity Fund last summer with committed capital of $850 million.
"I feel like we are just getting started here because of the magnitude of the problems that need to be fixed," he added.Traders can buy and sell futures contracts - agreements to buy in the future for prices agreed today - based on the price of water in California on the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index.
"People were buying water in the western United States and not knowing what the guy down the road was doing, so we worked out the formula and put that price up on a screen," Coogan said.
Good. Too few people have immediate access to clean safe water.