When The Rivers Run Dry: What Happens When Our Water Runs Out? - Hardcover

Pearce, Fred

3.97

992 ratings by Goodreads

9781903919576: When The Rivers Run Dry: What Happens When Our Water Runs Out?

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1903919576 ISBN 13: 9781903919576

Publisher: Eden Project Books, 2006

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Do you know how much water you use each day – not just the 5 litres you may drink, or the 150 litres you guzzle to cook, wash, and flush the toilet with. It takes around 500 litres of water to grow the wheat to produce a loaf of bread. A staggering 11,000 litres to feed enough cows to make a quarter-pound hamburger. You could take 25 baths in the water it takes to grow the cotton for just one T-shirt... The South East of Britain has less water per capita than the Sudan or Ethiopia and while there is less and less rain our demand grows. Slowly but surely we’re draining our rivers and hillside springs dry. Much more alarming, we import huge volumes of water in our dockside deliveries of wheat, beef, rice... And while our water crisis is relatively tranquil, it is repeated – often in vastly more dangerous form – across the world. That we face a world-wide crisis is no idle threat. Pearce’s 15-year research into water issues has taken him all over the world. His vivid reportage reveals the personal stories behind failing rivers, barren fields, desertification, floods and water wars. His book gives a clear and terrifying picture of the consequences if no remedial action is taken, but also a brilliantly challenging explanation of the steps we must take to ensure the ‘blue revolution’ the world desperately needs.

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Review:

Environmental journalist Fred Pearce's book, When the Rivers Run Dry could not be better timed -- Robin McKie, The Observer, Feb 26 2006

His vision of a not-too-distant future where wars are fought over water is terrifying, but the book also offers solutions -- Country Living

If ever a book has been written that demands to be read it is this one. -- Tim Smit, The Eden Project

It's time to face up to consequences of our actions. Reading this alarming book is a good place to start. -- Mick Herron, The Geographical Magazine

More evangelist than doomsayer...Pearce illuminates the folly of
trying to control a natural force with concrete and steel. -- The Sunday Times

Pearce manages to convey the immense wreckage human activity is
making of our lifeblood.
-- John McGrath, Grist

Pearce provides a compelling compendium of place-based water
stories that reveal just how ground-shifting the world's water predicament
will be.
-- Sandra L. Postel, Science

Those who...take Pearce's tour through the global water crisis will be treated to an enriching and farsighted work -- Jai Singh, San Francisco Chronicle

Unblinking look at the growing water crisis, both here and abroad. -- Culture (supp. to the Sunday Times)

With a drumbeat of facts...the former...news editor documents a 'kind of cataclysm' already affecting many of the world's great rivers -- Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher:

Drought is an issue for all of us. From hosepipe bans to water wars the world shortage of this crucial resource affects every one of us. Fred Pearce’s book is the most comprehensive and most critically acclaimed on the subject. Like The Silent Spring it is an environmental classic.

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