Meet Dr. Skywater, the Japanese Genius Behind Rainwater Recycling

The global water crisis is getting worse and worse every single day. In Japan, there is a man who is trying to end this with the use of rain.

Makoto Murase, a pharmacologist by training and a retired government employee, developed his own urban water recycling system in the early 1980s. Murase's self-designed water recovery technology collected, filtered and kept rainwater in large underground storage tanks, preventing the flooding of sewers and also providing usable water for irrigation, toilets, washing and even drinking.

"I decided to call rainwater 'sky water' after learning the wisdom of our ancestors, who believed it was a gift from heaven and called it sky water with great respect,'' he told National Geographic. Hence, his nickname "Dr. Skywater."

With the proven success of his system's early version, which was first installed in Tokyo's Sumo Stadium, the city made it mandatory for all new buildings -- including the Skytree, the highest skyscraper in Japan -- to have their own underground rainwater tanks. Today, more than a thousand buildings in Tokyo harvest and recycle their own water from the rain.

But Murase's dreams are far bigger and further than Japan. "My dream is to solve drinking crises everywhere. We are living beneath the same sky," Dr. Skywater explains.