Whose Water Is It?: The Unquenchable Thirst of a Water-Hungry World

McDonald, an environmentalist and editor of Extreme Landscape, and Jehl, a New York Times national correspondent on environmental affairs, gather 13 compelling essays on the state of water use in a collection that offers both dire warnings and causes for hope. Maude Barlow, in her essay ""The World's Water: A Human Right or a Corporate Good?,"" looks at the issue of ownership. Besides private companies stepping in to operate municipal water supplies--as happened in a Bolivian city, with disastrous effects--organizations such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank are powerful allies working for the ""liberalization of national laws in relationship to water""; water, she argues, should be a public trust, its management and distribution built on the""twin foundations of conservation and equity."" As a poster country for poor water management, China has almost no equal, and several essays in the book highlight the problems facing a country where dangerous floods threaten the south as northern farms and industries go dry. ""Why is China running out of water?"" asks Marq De Villiers in his essay, ""Three Rivers."" ""The answer is the same as for the rest of the world: it isn't running out. It's only running out in places where it's needed most."" Other problems addressed include pollution, irrigation, the draining of ""fossil aquifers"" and the burgeoning population in many dry areas. Conflicts over water have begun to increase in number, scale and violence, but new ideas are being tested in hard-pressed Saudi Arabia, San Diego and other deserts--efforts include community planning, desalinization, use of gray water, conservation and reforestation. Though the book doesn't shy away from painful truths about global water use, it is far from a doomsday report, instead offering fresh insight and constructive, real-world solutions from a well-chosen group of authors.