Paul Reig and Andrew Maddocks, World Resources Institute: “…extracting natural gas and tight oil from shale poses environmental risks, especially when it comes to water. Hydraulic fracturing requires up to 25 million liters of fresh water per well, meaning shale resources can be hard to develop where fresh water is hard to find—including in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies and populations.As interest in shale resources grows, the time is ripe to understand these constraints and act to mitigate risks to companies, farms, and people around as-yet undeveloped shale plays. A new WRI report, Global Shale Gas Development: Water Availability and Business Risks, analyzes water availability across all potential commercial shale resources worldwide for the first time, and shows that limited water availability could pose challenges to shale resource development on six continents.”