Book Review: Water, The Fate of our Most Precious Resource
In 1999, according to Marq de Villiers, a child died every eight seconds from
contaminated drinking water. Today, he thinks that figure may be one child every
six seconds.
In his book "Water, The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource", de Villiers starts
by educating us about the global water situation. We learn a bit about the history
of water, where it came from, how it has been managed throughout history, where
the fresh water is and where it isn't and how water distribution is changing.
Then we explore climate change around the globe. In each chapter, we are taken
from one country to another to see what is happening to water around the world.
The desert is closing in on the city of Timbuktu; formerly healthy nomads are
moving from a nomadic life in the desert to become slum dwellers in the city
because that is where the water is, although there is still not enough.
Construction of railways, airports and highways can interfere with ground water
sources. Improper irrigation and pesticide use can pollute the water and destroy
the land; more people increase demands on water resources and the land. We
go to Russia and take a trip down the Volga where we find towns with polluted
air, riverbanks with dead trees, no birds, no foliage and no sound.
Derelict buildings sit in pulp and paper towns, mining towns have dirty buildings
in severe disrepair sitting beside a river of contaminated, yellow water. In
Eastern Europe there is "hardly a river, stream or brook that isn't contaminated
with the runoff from human misuse, whether industrial effluents, agricultural
pesticides and herbicides, or worse." We take a look at the dusty, salty disaster
of the Aral Sea, a result of careless irrigation.
In Colorado we learn the importance of the Hoover Dam and from there go back
to the Volga and on to Africa, Egypt, Sudan, Florida, British Columbia, Alberta
and China to find out about how dams have affected the environment, people,
and the availability of water. Irrigation schemes can be simple or complex and
they have been around for centuries. While irrigation can be a sustainable
practice, large farming operations, massive dams and diversion projects have
created a system of irrigation that has drained the rivers, salinated the ground
water and rendered some of the earth useless for agriculture.
De Villiers talks of scientific, political and business relationships to water. He is
mostly objective and the book is written to help non scientists understand what is
happening with water around the world. It is an easy to read book that I found
difficult to put down as I continued on to the Middle East and back to America to
discover aquifers and discuss new ideas for transporting water, desalination, and
water storage.
Water shortages have created tense situations around the world that some think
could lead to war. For the cost of a day of war ($100 million), 100 million cubic
metres of water can be desalinated. The last chapter of the book talks about
possible solutions to global water problems ending by hoping that human
ingenuity and inventiveness will get us out of this water crisis.
Susan Turansky
April 23 2004