Video: Water as a Platform for Development

Four Harvard students from four different disciplines discuss a summer spent in Pakistan investigating water-related issues.

In Jonathan Shaw’s “The Water Tamer,” from the January-February 2012 issue, Professor John Briscoe, who worked on water projects for governments and the World Bank for decades before joining Harvard in 2009, explains that water issues are “part religion, part politics, part civilization.” Last summer, as part of the Harvard Water Security Initiative, Briscoe decided it was time for an experiment: he traveled to Pakistan with four Harvard students from four different disciplines—law, public policy, mechanical engineering, and environmental engineering—to complete a firsthand investigation of the complicated issues surrounding the 1,800-mile-long Indus River. Watch a video of Briscoe and his team discussing their work with the Friends of Democratic Pakistan water sector task force, explaining how they integrated their various disciplines to brainstorm solutions for the arid country's critical irrigation and agricultural problems, and presenting their plans for future involvement in water issues around the globe. 

You might also like

“It’s Tournament Time”

Harvard women’s basketball prepares for Ivy Madness.

A Harvard Agenda Shaped by Speech

The work underway in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Dialogue, not Debate

American University’s Lara Schwartz, J.D. ’98, teaches productive disagreement.

Most popular

AWOL from Academics

Behind students' increasing pull toward extracurriculars

The Deadliest War

Drew Faust speaks on how the Civil War’s astounding death toll reshaped American society.

Who Built the Pyramids?

Not slaves. Archaeologist Mark Lehner, digging deeper, discovers a city of privileged workers.

More to explore

Winthrop Bell

Brief life of a philosopher and spy: 1884-1965

Talking about Talking

Fostering healthy disagreement

A Dogged Observer

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason takes the long view.