Last oasis : facing water scarcity
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Publisher's description: It is no coincidence that human civilization sprang from river valleys and floodplains. Access to water has been crucial to our food security and to the growth of cities and industries. In recent times, the fortunate have come to take water for granted: endless supplies seem to flow from dams, reservoirs, wells, and diversion projects. But for decades now we have wasted and mismanaged the world's water. Engineering projects, ever larger as demands spiral upward, have created an illusion of plenty even in the midst of scarcity. Gross underpricing has concealed the need for careful management. We have come to view water strictly as a resource that is there for the taking, rather than as a living system that drives the natural world on which we depend. We are entering a new era - an era of water scarcity. The signs are evident the world over: shrinking lakes and seas, depleted river flows, and falling groundwater levels. Chronic shortages could unfold this decade in much of Africa, northern China, pockets of India, Mexico, the Middle East, and parts of western North America. Already 26 countries have too little water to support their populations sustainably. We hear rumblings of potential war over water in the Middle East. And competition for supplies is brewing between city-dwellers and farmers around Beijing, New Delhi, Phoenix, and other water-short areas. In this, the third volume in the Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series, Sandra Postel examines the limits - ecological, economic, and political - of water. Postel, vice president for research of the Worldwatch Institute, writes with authority and clarity of these emerging threats to our future. And, perhaps most important, she offers a disarmingly sensible way out of such struggles

Publisher's description: Last Oasis discloses that the technologies and know-how exist today to make every drop of water go further, decreasing the likelihood of both scarcity and conflict. Postel shows us that with currently available methods, agriculture - which uses the lion's share of fresh-water resources - could cut its demands by 10-50 percent, industries by 40-90 percent, and cities by one-third. All this with no sacrifice of economic output or quality of life. Successful, cost-effective strategies are already up and running. Boston, Massachusetts, reduced its water use 16 percent in four years, thanks largely to home water-saving devices, industrial recycling, and repairing leaks - at a cost only a third to half as much as conventional proposals to expand the supply. Some 70 percent of Israel's sewage gets treated and reused to irrigate 19,000 hectares of farmland. In Germany, state-of-the-art paper manufacturing plants use 100 times less water to produce each kilogram of paper than older factories elsewhere. In much of the world, it turns out, ways to conserve water and use it more efficiently represent the least costly and most environmentally sound options for achieving water balance. And so far, Last Oasis discovers, they have barely been tapped. A key challenge is to reform government policies that now price water far below its worth, perpetuating the illusion of plenty. Beyond such practical measures, Postel calls for a new water ethic - one that makes the protection of water ecosystems a central aim in all we do, and that compels us to use less whenever we can, and share what we have. If we fail to understand the limits of water, Postel reminds us, we may learn the hard way the truth of Ben Franklin's adage, "When the well's dry, we know the worth of water."