Find Water: The Fate Of Our Most Precious Resource Written By Marq De Villiers Distributed As Interactive EBook

is one of the most fundamental, comprehensive books i've ever read about the resource we are rapidly flushing down the drain, Wish I owned it Rereading thisyears later. Some of the specific cases are out of date, but the message and examples are still for the most part relevant, Great to really sink in to it outside of school, Muy interesante, aunque creo que no ha envejecido bien en algunos aspectos, A wellresearched, intriguing, and frighteningly personal look at the worlds water resources and the problems they face or faced, Three only because it is rather outdated at this point the revised and updated addition I read came out in, A lot has changed in the water world since then, However, this is still a good read for those who are interested in the history of the water crisis, Those wanting to understand the state of our water resources now, should look for more updated material, A very interesting book to learn more detail about water, As the population is booming, the author mentioned the detail about water crisis, water pressure, and water issues,

I wonder what would be his thoughts after the US invaded the Middle East, What wars bring more stress about water! Bookof: Water The Fate Of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq de Villiers, Mariner Books,p,

This wellwritten and engaging book purports itself to be a narrative on the world water crisis, I found the intersection of geopolitics with water issues to be fascinating, given my current work in international humanitarian work and water security in many of the countries the author deals with.


In the book he defines that the freshwater supply on the planet is about,percent of all water on the planet, much of that locked up in the polar ice caps and in the atmosphere, He defines, based on United Nations recommendations that the minimum water need for people isliters per day per person, How recites a litany of global lowering of water levels and flows in reservoirs, aquifers, and rivers, I enjoyed his description of the water use of ancient civilizations,

The book, however, is woefully out of date having been published overyears ago, The face of politics and need in Iraq for instance has vastly changed postand postSadaam, The geographic face of Africa has also changed with changing borders and new countries, The ongoing two decade drought in the American Southwest was only just beginning and water use practices have evolved and continue to evolve with lessening water in the Colorado River basin he repeats my favorite canard about Colorado water being used for swimming pools and fountains in LA and Vegas when almostpercent is used for agriculture.
However, one cannot fault him for not being able to predict the future,

However, one can fault him for his journalistic bent of presenting “both sides”, Climate change deniers are given equal time in the book with the vast majority of climate scientists, Evenyears ago, anthropogenic climate change was seen as a realityeven more so now, He also indicates that the,billion year old age of the Earth is an "assumption" it is not it is a conclusion based on scientific evidence, He also presents a disdain for environmentalists that is seemingly out of step with his presenting “both sides” of an argument journalistic viewpoint,

The author ends the book with presenting four ways out of the crisis:
Make more water desalinization
Conserve management and regulation
Reduce population/population growth trough education
Forcibly take it water wars

Even while noting that the book is out of date, it still was a good and interesting read.
I enjoyed his last chapter on what can be done fascinating, especially since I had just hear on NPR an interview with Pat Mulroy, former head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and her ideas on desal, the Salton Sea, and the Colorado River supply.


I cant really recommend this book other than as a description of global water issues as they existedyears ago much like how I view Marc Reisners Cadillac Desert woefully out of date but with still valid history.
The first question I asked before reading this book was, "Is it up date", I still don't know the answer, However, I did read the revised editionvs the originaledition and would definitely recommend the revised, as there does seem to be a lot of updates and overhaul.
The revised edition is at leastpages longer, although it leaves out a nice chart summing up the numbers, in the appendix of the original, comparing the per capita and overall amounts of water available to each country which was somewhat misleading anyways.


The book structure is as follows, After the introduction, the first half of the book introduces various issues, The natural cycle of water, water sources, how much water there is overall, climate change, polution, dams, irrigation, etc, The second half of the book is divided into geographical sections, detailing the water crises in the middle east, northern and southern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, North America.
Europe and Russia are mentioned as examples earlier in the book, but don't get their own section, The final chapters, of course, focuses on possible solutions and outlooks,

I liked the writing, Of course, there are too many meaningless numbers to us laymen, and that's inescapable, but the word flow in between helped considerably, I found he was fairly balanced, that he included the viewpoint of dissenters, At times I found I disagreed with him, but there was enough balance overall, I did like how he often came back to the point that world overpopulation was a huge factor, As a Canadian, I enjoyed the section on North America, and came to realize that Canada isn't necessarily as waterrich, or responsible, and our water isn't as clean especially out east as we've come to believe.
Bulkwater exports, on the minds of many Canadians, is discussed, but while I found it interesting and sobering, I didn't always find his conclusions to be particularly convincing on the subject.
I like how many different areas of the world are looked at in depth and how international boundaries rarely lining up with natural watersheds has caused so many problems.
Overall, I quite liked the structure of the book,

Here are my concerns, The author doesn't seem to believe that humans have heavily influenced climate change, Luckily, however, this doesn't seem to affect the book as much as you'd expect, I wish he'd explained desalination earlier in the book and I don't think he goes far enough into detail as to the potential ecological drawbacks of it.
I found a lot of the ingenuities and recent developments to be crammed into the last chapter, without enough time for reflection, which only adds to wondering what has changed in the lastyrs since.
Also, he talks about both sides of the water privatization issue, but I don't feel as though he really fully explored the issue, from all angles, Also, he mentions a lot of huge projects over the years that were disastrous, though he seems to admit, between the lines, that there may be room for more of these in the future.
Also, I wish there was at least one basic map for each geographic chapter, Would've helped me visualize much better,

In the end, I enjoyed the book overall, and haven't heard of anything better to recommend, I did enjoy reading it and was certainly left with some questions and concerns, but I think overall, you wouldn't go wrong reading this as your introduction into world water and its politics.
I feel this book suffers somewhat from its buckaroo attitude, but it offered a very helpful and personable introduction to water conflicts around the world, I opened this book, inspired and ready to love it, during a water project of my own in the Karnataka state of India, I didn't make it pastpages, The book reads like a series of statistics and quotes with little additional thought or input from the author, This book gives a good summary of freshwater as a resource in terms of basic properties, the history of its human use and control, and the current concerns about water mostly in terms of economics and national and international politics.
The book highlights the

debates and challenges about human use, mostly as domestic, agricultural, and industrial use, De Villiers presents a comprehensive, if abbreviated, discussion of the politics and economics which is valuable, The book suffers a bit from a lack of similar attention paid to the broader ecological issues, including the nonhuman use of water, The book is somewhat dated, nevertheless, I found the book enlightening and thought provoking, An enjoyable light read on the issue of water at the turn of the century

It is interesting that in the age of space exploration, and as we search for habitable planets across the galaxy, or extraterrestrial life, that we are so focused on three tiny atoms of the most primitive variety.
When combined in this bizarre ménageàtrois, they behave rather strangely, Densest in liquid form, at roughlydegrees Celsius, it is the prime element of life as we know it,

Marq de Villiers book is a somewhat dated but very thought provoking introduction to water management, use, abuse and conservation c,. The book has nice flow, is seldom dry and quenches a thirst for a basic understanding the the historical and contemporary uses of water,

Puns aside, the book uses memorable concrete examples to illustrate some of the issues surrounding water today or, well,years ago, These are perennial issues, such as the diversion of water from tributaries to the Aral sea for cotton and agriculture, Or the rights of 'upstream' and 'downstream' nations over a shared resource Egypt and Ethiopia, Sinking aquafers in the United States or the Sahara, Salination and desalination

The book paints a dark picture but is far from alarmist, His recommendations are well thought out and explained, though radical environmentalists and leftwing progressives would be alarmed that he sees hope in the market mechanism water pricing to reduce consumption.
Of the "three strategies" at the close of the book, the best is the second as the first and the third are difficult to achieve en masse.
A fine introduction to global water issues, Done back at the turn of the century Enron is still a going concern, de Villiers looks at the major areas of water stress across the globe and at some of the political issues surrounding them.
South Africaborn and raised on a waterstarved farm on the desert's edge there, de Villiers asks clear questions about misuse and maldistribution of water resources, and he looks at the political issues as well.
If farmland is taken out of cultivation to conserve depleting aquifers, what happens to the farmers Are we willing to effectively dismantle cities and towns in the American West that have no access to water on any rational economic calculation How do you ask China or Africa to forego using water for development that could lift populations at least temporarily out of poverty De Villiers' account of water issues in Israel/Palestine is wellhandled, and probably deserves another chapter or two.
A very good introductory book, and a good springboard to more technical and more political analyses, In his awardwinning book WATER, Marq de Villiers provides an eyeopening 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 wakeup call for concerned citizens, environmentalists, policymakers, and water drinkers everywhere" Publishers Weekly.
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