When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century Paperback – March 15, 2007

As long as humans have farmed and had cities, they have had water management programs that arguably, as the author notes, lie at the basis of the need for the first central governments. Failures of management have often been the cause of social collapse. The book makes painfully evident the fact that in much of the world we have engineered ourselves into similar predicaments that are unsustainable.Some of the stories of mismanagement and its consequences are truly wrenching, such as that of the people around the Aral Sea (which has disappeared) or of some people in South India using water that is chemical industry effluent to drink and to water their fields. The book is well worth reading, and eye opening. On the negative side, the author mixes the relatively benign with the truly tragic, the small scale incidents with the enormous tragedies unfolding, without much distinction of scale. In many instances, the story revolves around mismanagement and engineering blunders. In other instances, the story is really that there are simply too many people for the water available in a particular place, with the consequence of forcing the land and water to perform what it can't, or of people forced to drink water laden with arsenic and fluoride in Bangladesh, as there is no alternative.There are massive water management projects underway in China and India, and the real possibility of disaster on a massive scale if things go wrong. With respect to the Yangtze river project, things can go very wrong, given the high silt content of the river. The present problem of Pakistan is a good example of unsustainable practices with increasingly terrible consequences unfolding.The concept of "virtual water", that is, shipment to dry regions of crops that require much water to grow, is well worth noting.The last fifty pages of the book are a book in itself. The topic changes from dire realities to solutions for living in dry conditions. Some are ancient, some recent, some exist in the natural world. Dew ponds, fog harvesting, qanats, or runoff collectors, porous cities. The future, the author suggests, will require local remedies rather than mega-projects. He makes a convincing argument that the local remedies work.The author does not pay much attention to the consequences of global warming on the redistribution of water in the coming century, an omission remedied in the excellent book he has recently published on the topic of global warming.Some things that the author or editors should have corrected: water is all about volume, but the volume measures are not defined in a meaningful way. I am sure the original literature refers to values in terms of "per square meter", but the author routinely uses "per 10.8 square feet" instead. Metric measures would have been easier to understand (they give round numbers). An acre-foot of water is the most common measure in the book, but is not defined. The important thing about acre-foot, I learned from Wikipedia, is that it is approximately the water usage of a person per year in advanced societies. The author would have done well to tell his reader this. For those readers who need to be enlightened (as I did) an acre-foot is a cubic measure of an acre (which is one chain x one furlong) x one foot. Good luck defining a chain and a furlong. Far easier to visualize an acre-foot as roughly 1,200 cubic meters, or in terms of usage per person.A reference list would have been welcome.Altogether a terrific and alarming book that has its small flaws.

British author Fred Pearce has collected together some of the most interesting, nerve-wracking, disappointing, and infuriating stories and statistics on water politics worldwide into this gripping volume, titled When the Rivers Run Dry. The depth with which Pearce treats the subject and the diversity of angles from which he approaches the issues facing water management (and rather more often the appalling mismanagement) makes this book required reading for those who wish to be environmentally literate.Actually, let me elevate that statement to say instead that this book should be required reading for anyone over the age of 15, regardless of their language or nationality or cultural background. Many people think that water comes from the tap in the same way that milk comes from the carton, and this simplistic ignorance is dangerously impermissible in a supposedly educated society. Pearce's work is illuminating and educational while also being an engaging read, and given the fact that water is even more fundamental to life than oil is, everyone should know much more than they generally do about the water cycle. More to the point, we need to know how that cycle supports human life and civilization, and how it is being disrupted and abused for selfish political gains, economic control, and narrowly commercial self-interest.This abuse is being perpetrated by a handful of breathtakingly arrogant government bureaucrats, working in concert with wonkish engineers disconnected from ecological realities and corporate thieves seeking to commandeer common and collectively-held resources for their own private empires. Prepare to be shocked, dismayed, and appalled as you read about what has happened to the world's rivers, lakes, marshes, and estuaries. Worse yet, you'll likely be disheartened by what is planned for the future. Said future looks grim unless the world's people wake up to what is happening and disallow the destructive centralized planning that is threatening to wreak massive negative change upon what remains of the world's freshwater ecological systems.No nation is exempt from the potable fresh water crisis, although the most immediate and well-publicized dilemmas are occurring in arid and semiarid regions. It is indeed logical that water is one of the most embattled resources in arid regions, but Pearce demonstrates that even rivers in abundantly wet areas suffer under environmental strains as varied as climate change, hydroelectric projects, and pilfering for export to drier neighboring climates. From Cambodia to Israel, and from Mexico to Germany, Pearce dedicates chapters to specific types of water-related problems that will astound you and will hopefully act as a wake-up call to action before it is too late.Lest I give the impression that the book is nothing but doom and gloom, it is important to state that the final few chapters end on a positive note, with success stories and reversals of major and catastrophic disruptions giving a glimpse of light at the end of the dark water tunnel. Solutions with widespread applicability to many neighborhood situations are explored, and there is always the possibility of small local movements turning into global grassroots phenomena. One can take heart in the tentative steps towards sustainable water use being made in places like rural India and downtown Los Angeles even as the looming specters of unparalleled water shortages cast long shadows over those regions.Anyone who has ever read Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner's seminal book on water politics in the Western United States, will want to read Fred Pearce's When The Rivers Run Dry. This is a definitive work on worldwide water issues, and ought to take its place in the annals of environmentalist and social justice literature as the message filters through the aquifers of the public's subconscious. Tapping the well of knowledge where water is concerned is going to be critical to global survival. We are all in the same boat, so to speak.

When I read this book in 2008 I found it well organized and he articulately reviews not only the major rivers of the world but also wet lands and aquifers. From the perspective of 2006, when the book was finished, it is a compendium of what has gone wrong and some disturbing projections of what might happen if the global society did not address water issues. Since the original publication the western United States has slipped into a mega-drought, Sao Paolo, Brazil's largest city has almost run out of water, Syria entered a multi-year drought which some argue is the genesis of the civil war and the rise of ISIS and the United States continues to water mine the Ogallala Aquifer for water to grow corn to produce energy inefficient ethanol. As the song from the 60s notes "When Will They Ever Learn?"This is a book that demands an update 2nd edition. Many of the problems Mr.Pearce described have come to pass while others wait on the sidelines. The 4/13/15 front page headline of the NY Times is a picture of a rancid ditch that was once the mighty Rio Grande. Although this would not be surprising to anyone who read his book it appears as breaking "news" to many, not the least being elected politicians. Survival instruction talks about the rule of threes that if not observed will result in death: 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food. Global food stocks are at historic lows and it is easy to imagine loss of potable water leading to a loss of food and should that occur we will see a loss of social coherence. Mark Twain said it best: "Whiskey is for drinking, Water is for Fighting" and as Fred Pearce noted the battles are already underway.

A wonderful book. Very interesting. Essential to everyone who has a little of ecological conscience. It can change your vision of the world. Great job. Thank you

Can't review a book I have NOT YET RECEIVED. Eleven more words? I believe I've said it all! This is stupid!

Un livre tres bien ecrit .. tres complet et documente et facile a lire. Passionnant et en meme temps tres triste ce qu'on fait au nom de l'agriculture a notre planete. A lire particulierement le chapitre sur la cisjordanie au coeur du conflit actuel ...