Abrahm Lustgarten

Investigative reporter and climate author

In “Killing the Colorado,” he investigated political decisions and water-management rules that deepen the American West’s water crisis. “Use It or Lose It” showed how historic water rights can encourage waste instead of conservation during drought. A separate investigation explained how treating groundwater and surface water as independent supplies produces misleading calculations of available resources. Rather than reducing scarcity to a weather story, his reporting directs attention to institutional responsibility and competing interests among agriculture, expanding cities and the protection of a shared resource.