When The Rivers Run Dry - Fred Pearce

A very thorough look at our disappearing rivers, our increasing reliance on water for our intense agriculture, the demand of population growth and the distribution of population compared to water geography.  It is obvious that the story of water is one that is playing out with all our resources – a scramble to get all you can get before it runs out and then let the future generations figure things out for themselves.

Think about the idiocy that goes on when each political body dams the river and extracts the water upstream before the traditional cultures downstream can get their share.  Think about ignoring the melt waters of glaciers and not considering that their slow summer melt keeps a source of water going to the communities at lower elevations.  There is the loss of habitat, the loss of streams, the displacement of people, and the inevitable silting and deterioration of these assaults on the environment.  One study showed that 80,000,000 people worldwide have been displaced by dams and their reservoirs.  And of course the reservoirs evaporate extensive amounts of water that cannot be used and silt fills in the back of the dam instead of recharging the fertility of the flood plains.

Then the horror continues when the heavy waters come and the need to save the dam means a release of water in a flash flood event that is seldom conveyed to the peasants downstream until too late.  What a system.

In China, Pakistan, India and many other places in the world raw sewage is used for crops, untreated, disease and toxin laced human sewage – at the time of this book – 10% of the world agriculture grows in this way.   Israel uses 70% of treated water for its export crops.  Treatment works – In London the water has gone in and out of our septic systems 18 times or more before it comes out of the tap for drinking, but it is treated and therefore safe as far as we know.  But without treatment – the world is at risk.

The Valley of Death changed its name to the Imperial Valley and suddenly history shifted, but the Colorado River is the second siltiest river in the world (Yellow is Number 1).    The shifting of the Colorado River for irrigation with new canals and floods running out of control, the flow of water created an inland sea and a new route was created by the flow.  As a result it cut back upstream creating the desert canyon ½ mile a day.  With millions of acre feet pouring into the valley a railroad company that was going bankrupt was hired to bring rocks and dump them for years until the Colorado River was once again under some form of control.  Next was the American Canal – another massive boondock.  This sustained a portion of the new inland sea – the Salton Sea – which quickly became a salt lake, sustained by sewage and drainage. 

Now the Salton Sea produces fish and is home to more birds than the everglades, however, this strange story has one more twist.  Because of more urban needs the irrigation water will be less abundant which creates less drainage, more evaporation and the potential loss of the lake, habitat, and local communities.  The move to efficiency in agricultural water increased the awareness of the water value and those who own the water under the old and complicated water allotment laws, and those farmers are thinking they can get more from Las Vegas and its extreme wastefulness than they get from the work of growing crops.

Ultimately we have to quit flushing freshwater to the sea as quickly as possible and find ways to utilize the flood waters and the natural flows as well as the marshes and wetlands that server as important sponges for year around water.  The damage of engineering following old paradigms multiplies every year, but there is a chance to improve conditions if humans and governments can commit.  The chance of that?????????????????

Throughout history, rivers have been our foremost source of fresh water both for agriculture and for individual consumption, but now economists say that by 2025 water scarcity will cut global food production by more than the current U.S. grain harvest.In this groundbreaking book, veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce focuses on the dire state of the world's rivers to provide our most complete portrait yet of the growing world water crisis and its ramifications for us all. Pearce traveled to more than 30 countries examining the current state of crucial water sources like the Indus River in Pakistan, the Colorado River in the U.S., and the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China. Pearce deftly weaves together the complicated scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the water crisis, showing us its complex origins - from waste to wrong-headed engineering projects to high-yield crop varieties that have saved developing countries from starvation but are now emptying their water reserves. He reveals the most daunting water issues we face today, among them the threat of flooding in China's Yellow River, where rising silt levels will prevent dikes from containing floodwaters; the impoverishment of Pakistan's Sindh, a once-fertile farming valley now destroyed by the 15 million tons of salt that the much-depleted Indus deposits annually on the land but cannot remove; the disappearing Colorado River, whose reservoirs were once the lifeblood of seven states but which could easily dry as overuse continues; and the poisoned springs of Palestine and the Jordan River, where Israeli control of the water supply has only fed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.The situation is dire, but not without remedy. Pearce argues that the solution to the growing worldwide water shortage is not more and bigger dams, but a greater efficiency and a new water ethic based on managing the water cycle for maximum social benefit rather than narrow self-interest....