Good high-level overview of key challenges in water resources management. Provides interesting case studies. Doesn't focus a great deal on solutions but this is good in many ways as solutions will be bespoke depending on geography.

Pearce travels around the world, exploring country's major rivers and the destruction that mankind has brought them. He gives us the twentieth century soltuions to twenty-first century problems, in the engineering feats lauded over in the WPA era and the consequences they’re having today to address population control and ecosystem damage.
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These structures are now prone to even more, with increased floods, changing weather patterns and the population booms. Many of these structures, whether canals, dams, or levees, are short-term fixes to long-term problems. Pearce gets right into these issues, talking to people affected by the health of their various rivers.

Pearce ultimately concludes that simpler technologies, not engineering marvels, are the solution. Things like rainwater harvesting and latrines, drip irrigation and smarter urban design. Local solutions are required, and if water is a human right, then it must not operate on narrow self-interest, as is the policy in so many places. Essentially, we need a smarter, more sustainable blue revolution, to parallel the green revolution of the environmental movement. WE need a new water ethic that respects and cherishes water and rather than try to revert it or direct it, instead uses its natural rhythms to sustain human population and the environment.

I did really like this book, it talked about a lot of interesting things in regards to water I have never heard of. It might be a bit out of date now, it would be cool to read a revised version. Sometimes though it talked about so many things it was hard to grasp, and I didn’t really like how it was organized. It could be kind of confusing at times and I don’t know if I retained as much as I was hoping. Make I have a case of “porous head” haha

A wealth of information, written engagingly, but it will only hold your interest if you are really into the topic (I was, but still read the book little bits at a time). This isn't a book about climate change, but it makes you realize that humanity is screwed regardless of climate change! Depressing but realistic. Maybe those popsicle plastic sleeves will save us, because taking shorter showers won't. Book lost 1/2 star for no references or footnotes at all.

This was my first introduction to Water - inspired by my NYE visit to a wetland near Shangrila, Yunnan and the realization that I knew nothing of wetlands or environmental issues in general. I cried and laughed and rolled over a few times reading this -- it was pure joy/sorrow following the story of water across major rivers, aquifers, wetlands, manmade canals, dams, boreholes of this world... (which also gave much insight into rise and fall of civilizations and the extent of importance of agriculture, irrigation, and virtual water trade in shaping 20th/21st century). It's a bit outdated (2005?), but I'd gladly read it yearly (or if there were updated versions). Chalk full of case studies from around the world (never knew Qaddafi built multibillion dollar mandmade river straight through Libya's desert) and plethora of numbers to shock and mobilize you to do something. Will continue this quest to understand water summore in the coming months...

When the Rivers Run Dry is een prachtig boek en geniale titel voor al wie inzet met hoe wij ons water beheren. Fred Pearce neemt ons mee naar een 30-tal cases met betrekking tot een subthema van water en legt ons uit wat er aan de hand uit. Denk aan waterschaarste in Iran en Syrië, stuwdammen in China, geopolitieke conflicten door aftappen van water in Ethiopië en Soedan. Maar ook gaat er aandacht naar de beroerde situatie in Europa en de klimaatverandering die desastreuse gevolgen zoals droogte en watertekort zal ontlokken. Fred Pearce reikt ook enkele oplossingen aan. Eén zaak is zeker, met dit boek word je volledig 'ondergedompeld' in het feit dat water écht kostbaar is en we volledig de verkeerde kant uit gaan in het niet duurzaam beheren van ons water. Watertekort wordt dan ook dé problematiek van de toekomst met alle gevolgen van dien.

A review of modern and ancient water-related technologies and projects. Hard to get through the first half because it is just one engineering debacle after another, but then it goes into some of the more promising developments. Focuses on understanding water as a cycle, not just something passing through your basin.

(Potential read for a book club which, thankfully, doesn't want to meet in the middle of a sunny weekend, when any sensible person is hiking, sailing, or otherwise getting exercise and vitamin D.)

This book is EXCELLENT. If you only read one book about our water crisis, this is the one! And if you love it like I did, I'd recommend following it up with Water Follies, which is also about rivers, but focuses on a few in the US only...but in more detail. This book is more of an overview of the globe. It's VERY easy to read...if I remember correctly, it's written by a journalist who has chronicled river news for decades, given his inherent interest. The last parts of the book really touch on amazing things people are doing to draw water...and sometimes very low-tech, like capturing morning fog on plastic sheets for desert regions which border oceans. This is possibly my favorite book in the environmental category!

This book is about how all our rivers and lakes are slowly drying up. We use more water than than nature can put back, and for very inconvenient things. THis book explores this issue very well by showing startling statistics of the amount of water we are actually using and wasting. I feel very more informed on whats happening considering i didn't know very much about it or really anything about it in general. It puts a face on this issue to me a lot more knowing that we are wasting so much water on things we shouldnt be, and how people in other countries strive just to get a drink of clean water when our toliet water is cleaner than theirs. I like this book very much because, it shows that this crisis is a lot closer than we ever thought it would be.

This book is alarming and eye-opening about our impending water crises. I put this on my summer reding list and the students who have read it are now water conservation fantatics...This is a fantastic, abeit slightly dense, read.

A fine and very readable journalistic treatment of water use and abuse worldwide. Includes good descriptions of ancient and modern technologies and their ecological results. The writer makes it clear that complex societies. both ancient agricultural and modern industrial, are based on abundant use of water. And nothing can bring a complex society down faster than its lack. If you care for the future of your children and grandchildren and the other inhabitants of the earth as well this should be on your must read list. There is no excuse to say it is too technological or dry. The prose is lively and though the details are solid they are not overwhelming. And if you do not believe that water will be a huge problem - think again. I live in an area of abundant water and hydro power but even here a light snow pack and dry summer are matters of concern and conservation. The huge irony is that while garden cognoscenti in western Washington are letting their lawns go dormant in summer and not watering, the residents in Phoenix are pouring it on by the ton. This is madness and a widely prevailing one.