Whose Water is it?

“Each day at least 10,000 people worldwide die from disease-infected water.” This is just one of the startling statistics presented in Whose Water is it? This collection of 13 essays edited by Bernadette McDonald and Douglas Jehl, addresses a variety of water-related issues including, pollution, privatization, and distribution. The essays in this book are extremely diverse and interesting; many contributors have bias beliefs and opinions. Many I agree with, however, they are bias none the less.

There were countless statistics presented by scientists that I found extremely difficult to wrap my head around; it is estimated that by 2015, 3 billion people will live in countries where fresh water is in short supply. By 2050, the number could be as high as 7 billion. Numbers this large are difficult to comprehend, which is why the most specific examples are the most horrifying.

The book’s contributors make a very compelling argument: we use too much water, waste it foolishly, and degrade the environment by draining underground aquifers faster than they can be replenished. It also addresses some of the steps that might be taken to alleviate the problems: conservation, technological innovation, and effective water management.
The book’s 13 compelling essayists include Maude Barlow who, in her essay “The World’s Water: A Human Right or a Corporate Good?” looks at the issue of H2Ownership. Water, she argues, should be a public trust, its management and distribution built on the “twin foundations of conservation and equity.”

As a poster country for poor water management, China has several essays in the book that highlight the problems facing a country where dangerous floods are extremely threatening. While northern farms and industries go dry, the southern parts of the country flood. “Why is China running out of water?” asks Marq De Villiers in his essay, “Three Rivers.” “The answer is the same as for the rest of the world: it isn’t running out. It’s only running out in places where it’s needed most.”

In many parts of the world, useable fresh water (about 1% of the planet’s total) is a resource more valuable than oil and even more essential to life. This book makes clear the connection between inadequate clean water and poverty and the potential for increasing international conflicts. Consider the Taliban’s unauthorized construction of a dam on the Helmand River in eastern Afghanistan in the 1990s and its effect on neighboring Iran, where a 4,000-square-kilometer lake has been sucked bone-dry. All fish have disappeared and so has the village that depended on catching them. What remains is an exposed lakebed, rapidly being covered by dunes from frequent sandstorms. A modest example, but a particularly haunting symbol for a growing global problem.

Other problems addressed include pollution, irrigation, the draining of “aquifers”.

Conflicts over water have begun to increase and become more violent. New ideas are being tested around the world. Efforts include community planning, desalinization, conservation and reforestation. The book doesn’t shy away from painful truths about global water use, offering fresh insight and constructive solutions from a well-chosen group of authors.