Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource

Front Cover
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001 - Nature - 352 pages

In his award-winning book WATER, Marq de Villiers provides an eye-opening account of how we are using, misusing, and abusing our planet's most vital resource. Encompassing ecological, historical, and cultural perspectives, de Villiers reports from hot spots as diverse as China, Las Vegas, and the Middle East, where swelling populations and unchecked development have stressed fresh water supplies nearly beyond remedy. Political struggles for control of water rage around the globe, and rampant pollution daily poses dire ecological theats. With one eye on these looming crises and the other on the history of our dependence on our planet's most precious commodity, de Villiers has crafted a powerful narrative about the lifeblood of civilizations that will be "a wake-up call for concerned citizens, environmentalists, policymakers, and water drinkers everywhere" (Publishers Weekly).

 

Contents

2 The Natural Dispensation
27
3 Water in History
46
4 Climate Weather and Water
67
6 The Aral Sea
105
7 To Give a Dam
117
8 The Problem with Irrigation
136
9Shrinking Aquifers
146
The Reengineered River
166
11 The Middle East
185
14The United States and Its Neighbors
231
15 The Chinese Dilemma
263
Solutions and Manifestos
275
NOTES
317
BIBLIOGRAPHY
331
Copyright

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About the author (2001)

Marq de Villiers is the author of six books on exploration, history, politics, and travel, including INTO AFRICE: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE ANCIENT EMPIRES and WITH TRIBE DREAMING, his award-winning memoir of growing up in South Africa. He resides in Nove Scotia, Canada.

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