Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious ResourceIn 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 |
331 | |