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De Villiers examines the checkered history of humankind's management of water--which, he hastens to remind us, is not a renewable resource in many parts of the world. One of them is the Nile River region, burdened by overpopulation. Another is the Sahara, where Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi is pressing an ambitious, and potentially environmentally disastrous, campaign to mine deep underground aquifers to make the desert green. Another is northern China, where the damaging effects of irrigation have destroyed once-mighty rivers, and the Aral Sea of Central Asia, which was killed within a human lifetime. And still another is the American Southwest, where crops more fitting to a jungle than a dry land are nursed. De Villiers travels to all these places, reporting on what he sees and delivering news that is rarely good.
De Villiers has a keen eye for detail and a solid command of the scientific literature on which his argument is based. He's also a fine storyteller, and his wide-ranging book makes a useful companion to Marc Reisner's classic Cadillac Desert and other works that call our attention to a globally abused--and vital--resource. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Education of Water Supply,
By
This review is from: Water: The fate of our most precious resource (Hardcover)
After reading this book I have a slight compunction with each visit to the faucet or garden hose. I must admit I was somewhat incredulous about reading a book about water. However, the author captured my attention early in the first chapter and I found the book difficult to put down thereafter. My expectations of reading material suggestive of an impending water shortage were quickly cast aside. The author demonstrates significant evidence that the world is currently embroiled in a crisis of which most individuals are unware. The mere thought that countries may be led to war to secure a water supply, no matter how realistic, is disheartening. My conscious level of awareness regarding our current water supply has been heightened as a result of reading this excellent book. For more specific details see the reviews by Robert Steele and Charles Sharpless, they are both excellent summaries.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Easy to Swallow, but with No Additives,
By doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (Paperback)
This easy to read and conversational book can be used as an introduction to the fate of water supplies around the world and their impact on human societies. de Villiers takes us on a chapter-by-chapter dissertation first on the technical aspects of water issues, such as the mechanics of groundwater and dams. Then we proceed to selected examples of water crises around the globe, such as China's dilemma of having too much where it's not needed and too little where it is needed, or the hideous catastrophe of the Aral Sea in the former USSR. The author takes an admirably middle-of-the-road stance here and usually lets the facts speak for themselves, with just a little bit of opinionating. But his opinions are still quite moderate and level-headed, as he doesn't align himself with either unyielding environmentalists or extreme free trade proponents, both of which he accurately condemns as having very narrow outlooks on the real world. Some of de Villiers' key observations concern the water wars that will probably start erupting in coming years in dry regions of the world. Two countries will probably spend more money in a single day of war than it takes to improve water supplies for both of them for decades to come. Also, de Villiers drives home the point that the worrisome decline of fresh water around the globe is not due to greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians, or greens who refuse to let it be used. It's just the natural outcome of humans living like humans. Therefore real human cooperation across all societies is necessary to address the problem. Unfortunately, the author's chapter-by-chapter approach serves only as an introduction to separate topics of interest, without very much substance behind each one. Also, this subject requires harder economics, politics, and sociology than de Villiers provides here. Therefore this book can best be used as an introduction to these issues before you dive into much more specific books like "Rivers of Empire" by Worster or "Cadillac Desert" by Reisner (focusing on the American West), or the works of the Worldwatch Institute for the international story.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant--Puts Water in Context of War, Peace, and Life,
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Water: The fate of our most precious resource (Hardcover)
I rank this book as being among the top ten I have read in the decade, for the combined reason that its topic concerns our survival, and its author has done a superior job of integrating both scholarly research (with full credit to those upon whose work he builds) and what must be a unique background of actually having traveled to the specific desolate areas that comprise the heart of this book-from the Aral Sea ("the exposed seabed, now over 28,000 square kilometers, became a stew of salt, pesticide residues, and toxic chemicals; the strong winds in the region pick up more than 40 million tons of these poisonous sediments each year, and the contaminated dust storms that follow have caused the incidence of respiratory illnesses and cancers to explode.") to the heart of China ("According to China's own figures, between 1983 and 1990 the number of cities short of water tripled to three hundred, almost half the cities in the country; those who problem was described as 'serious' rose from forty to one hundred." The author provides a thoughtful and well-structured look at every corner of the world, with special emphasis on the Middle East, the Tigris-Euphrates System, the Nile, the Americas, and China; and at the main human factors destroying our global water system: pollution, dams (that silt up and prevent nutrients from going downstream or flooding from rejuvenating the lower lands), irrigation (leading to salination such that hundreds of thousands of acres are now infertile and being taken out of production), over-engineering, and excessive water mining from aquifers, which are in serious danger of drying up in key areas in the US as well as overseas within the next twenty years. The author provides a balanced and well-documented view overall. His final chapter on solutions explores conservation, technical, and political options. Two statements leapt off the page: first, that it is the average person, unaware of the fragility of our water system, that is doing the most damage, not the corporations or mega-farms; and second, that for the price of one military ship or equipped unit ($100 million), one can desalinate 100 million cubic meters of water. The bottom line is clear: we are close to a tipping point toward catastrophe but solution are still within our grasp, and they require, not world government, but a virtual world system that permits the integrated management of all aspects of water demand as well supply. This book should be required reading for every college student and every executive and every government employee at local, state, and federal levels; and every citizen.
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