Book Review #4: When the Rivers Run Dry

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century (2007)   

By Fred Pearce

Pearce’s work illustrates how localized water tragedies and successes further the global water debate and how solutions to water problems and conflicts depend on geography, geopolitical atmospheres and relationships between global industry, national government and community organizers.  Essentially this book is a cross between ethnography, a novel and a newspaper.  It is a text that takes a reader to every corner of the earth to explore and understand the breadth and complexity of water issues.  Pearce traveled from Hover Dam to the Yellow River and everyplace in between to understand how river ecosystems work when they are allowed to run wild and how dams impact those ecosystems.  This work led him to write about industrial pollution of rivers and ground water, international conflict regarding water, urban development and water treatment, and arsenic and fluoride poisoning in disenfranchised villages. 

When the Rivers Run Dry is griping because Pearce weaves the stories that he uncovers into a web of ideas that leaves his reader with an enhanced understanding of the urgency with which water issues must be addressed.  Additionally, Pearce employs the wisdom of water experts from every governmental, international and non-profit organization that has a hand in water policy, development, management and treatment. 

 Pearce is informed and unpretentious when he offers his rational for writing this book.  He informs his reader of how much water it takes to grow some of the world’s most popular foods.  It takes 130 gallons of water to grow a pound of wheat, 650 gallons for a pound of cheddar cheese and 3000 gallons for a quarter pound of hamburger.  “I figure that as a typical meat-eating, beer-swilling, milk-guzzling Westerner, I consume as much as a hundred times my own weight in water everyday.  Hats off, then, to my vegetarian daughter, who gets by with about half of that” (ch. 1, para. 7).  What he makes clear is that the current state of the global economy as it relates to water is unsustainable.  Globally land is desertifying, aquifers are being diminished and rivers are literally running dry.  Yet, countries with very little water to waste are exporting water hungry crops, low yield crops like alfalfa and cotton.  

To combat this, Pearce suggests that farmers be taught how to make wastewater irrigation safe and that all new homes in Los Angeles be required to harvest rainwater.  If everyone in Los Angeles harvested rainwater, he argues, more than 50% of the cities water needs would be met (right now they are piping in water from hundreds of miles away).  He also suggests that small water projects and recharge ponds used hundreds of years ago be employed to recharge aquifers, particularly in rural areas.  He warns against moving toward desalination, reservoir building and expensive infrastructure projects because he believes they are counter productive and outdated, especially in developing countries.

When the Rivers Run Dry is the most informed, well-written, reasonable and holistic book I have read in my water journey thus far.  If you only read one book about water I would highly recommend choosing this one.  If you are on your own water journey this is the book to start with. If you are a filmmaker you better snatch this one up before someone else beats you to the punch.