5/19/2023 0 Comments When the river runs dry summary![]() Of rain fall on the earth - the challenge is not having enough water butĮnsuring that the water is where we need it. Somewhere, sometime it will return - every day more than 800 million acre-feet The good news is that water is never destroyed - whatever we do to it, ![]() Of course, life isn't as simple as stop consuming and the problems will go away. If all the water used to irrigate the crops fell from the sky as rain or was taken from rivers or underground sources in sustainable amounts we'd be in good shape, but sadly and increasingly, that is not the case. Our Thai rice or wear Pakistani cotton we are influencing the hydrology of those ![]() One t-shirt! So, when we drink our Central American coffee, and consume Pearce estimates that the average meat-eating, beer-swilling American consumesġ00-times his own weight in water every day! As for the clothes on ourīacks - it takes 25 bathtubs of water to grow the 9 ounces of cotton to create To make a quarter-pound burger (assuming the cow is grain fed) and 500-1,000 To grow a pound of wheat, 65 gallons to grow a pound of potatoes, 3,000 gallons However that is a tiny fraction of the water we actually consumeīecause it takes 250-650 gallons of water to grow a pound of rice, 130 gallons For example, anĪverage American might use about 40 gallons of water a day for drinking, washingĪnd cleaning, perhaps double that if they live in the suburbs with a yard to Should be of concern to us are the ones in our own back yard but to think thatĭoesn't take into account our "virtual water" consumption. You might well think that the only rivers that Pearce argues that the solution to the growing worldwide water shortage is not more and bigger dams but greater efficiency and a new water ethic based on managing the water cycle for maximum social benefit rather than narrow self-interest. The situation is dire, but not without remedy. 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 dykes from containing floodwaters the impoverishment of Pakistan's Sindh, a once-fertile farming valley now destroyed by the 14 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 dry up as soon as 2007 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. 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. Pearce traveled to more than thirty countries while researching When the Rivers Run Dry, examining the current state of crucial water sources like the Indus River in Pakistan, the Colorado River in the United States, and the Yellow and Yangzte rivers in China. 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. 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.
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