Water, Peace, and War

Water, Peace, and War
Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2015-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442249285

Now in an updated edition, this pioneering and authoritative study considers the profound impact of the growing global water crunch on international peace and security as well as possible ways to mitigate the crisis. Although water is essential to sustaining life and livelihoods, geostrategist Brahma Chellaney argues that it remains the world’s most underappreciated and undervalued resource. One sobering fact is that the retail price of bottled water is already higher than the international spot price of crude oil. But unlike oil, water has no substitute, raising the specter of water becoming the next flashpoint for conflict. Water war as a concept may not mesh with the conventional construct of warfare, especially for those who plan with tanks, combat planes, and attack submarines as weapons. Yet armies don’t necessarily have to march to battle to seize or defend water resources. Water wars—in a political, diplomatic, or economic sense—are already being waged between riparian neighbors in many parts of the world, fueling cycles of bitter recrimination, exacerbating water challenges, and fostering mistrust that impedes broader regional cooperation and integration. The danger is that these water wars could escalate to armed conflict or further limit already stretched food and energy production. Writing in a direct, nontechnical, and engaging style, Brahma Chellaney draws on a wide range of research from scientific and policy fields to examine the different global linkages between water and peace. Offering a holistic picture and integrated solutions, his book has become the recognized authority on the most precious natural resource of this century and how we can secure humankind’s water future.

Blue Covenant

Blue Covenant
Author: Maude Barlow
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2009-05-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1595586377

A cautionary account of climate change and the global water supply. “You will not turn on the tap in the same way after reading this book.” —Robert Redford In a book hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “passionate plea for access-to-water activism,” Blue Covenant addresses an environmental crisis that—together with global warming—poses one of the gravest threats to our survival. How did the world’s most vital resource become imperiled? And what must we do to pull back from the brink? In “stark and nearly devastating prose”, world-renowned activist and bestselling author Maude Barlow—who is featured in the acclaimed documentary Flow—discusses the state of the world’s water. Barlow examines how water companies are reaping vast profits from declining supplies, and how ordinary people from around the world have banded together to reclaim the public’s right to clean water, creating a grassroots global water justice movement. While tracing the history of international battles for the right to water, she documents the life-and-death stakes involved in the fight and lays out the actions that we as global citizens must take to secure a water-just world for all (Booklist). “Sounds the water alarm with conviction and authority.” —Kirkus Reviews “This book proves that water deserves another destiny.” —Eduardo Galeano “Blue Covenant will inspire civil society movements around the world.” —Vandana Shiva

The Price of Thirst

The Price of Thirst
Author: Karen Piper
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2014-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1452943729

“There's Money in Thirst,” reads a headline in the New York Times. The CEO of Nestlé, purveyor of bottled water, heartily agrees. It is important to give water a market value, he says in a promotional video, so “we're all aware that it has a price.” But for those who have no access to clean water, a fifth of the world's population, the price is thirst. This is the frightening landscape that Karen Piper conducts us through in The Price of Thirst—one where thirst is political, drought is a business opportunity, and more and more of our most necessary natural resource is controlled by multinational corporations. In visits to the hot spots of water scarcity and the hotshots in water finance, Piper shows us what happens when global businesses with mafia-like powers buy up the water supply and turn off the taps of people who cannot pay: border disputes between Iraq and Turkey, a “revolution of the thirsty” in Egypt, street fights in Greece, an apartheid of water rights in South Africa. The Price of Thirst takes us to Chile, the first nation to privatize 100 percent of its water supplies, creating a crushing monopoly instead of a thriving free market in water; to New Delhi, where the sacred waters of the Ganges are being diverted to a private water treatment plant, fomenting unrest; and to Iraq, where the U.S.-mandated privatization of water resources destroyed by our military is further destabilizing the volatile region. And in our own backyard, where these same corporations are quietly buying up water supplies, Piper reveals how “water banking” is drying up California farms in favor of urban sprawl and private towns. The product of seven years of investigation across six continents and a dozen countries, and scores of interviews with CEOs, activists, environmentalists, and climate change specialists, The Price of Thirst paints a harrowing picture of a world out of balance, with the distance between the haves and have-nots of water inexorably widening and the coming crisis moving ever closer.

The Water Paradox

The Water Paradox
Author: Ed Barbier
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2019-02-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300240570

A radical new approach to tackling the growing threat of water scarcity Water is essential to life, yet humankind’s relationship with water is complex. For millennia, we have perceived it as abundant and easily accessible. But water shortages are fast becoming a persistent reality for all nations, rich and poor. With demand outstripping supply, a global water crisis is imminent. In this trenchant critique of current water policies and practices, Edward Barbier argues that our water crisis is as much a failure of water management as it is a result of scarcity. Outdated governance structures and institutions, combined with continual underpricing, have perpetuated the overuse and undervaluation of water and disincentivized much-needed technological innovation. As a result “water grabbing” is on the rise, and cooperation to resolve these disputes is increasingly fraught. Barbier draws on evidence from countries across the globe to show the scale of the problem, and outlines the policy and management solutions needed to avert this crisis.

Global Water Security

Global Water Security
Author: World Water Council
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2018-02-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9811079137

This book highlights the relationship between the water sector and various other sectors in order to establish an improved understanding of the importance of water resources as an essential cross-cutting vector of socio-economic development. The book is both policy and practice oriented and is not constrained by existing definitions on water security. It includes actual experiences of policy, management, development and governance decisions taken within the water sector, and examples on how these have affected the energy and agricultural sectors as well as impacted the environment, and vice versa, as appropriate. It also discusses trade-offs, short and long-term implications, lessons learnt, and the way forward. The book includes case studies on cities, countries and regions such as Australia, China, Singapore, Central Asia, Morocco, Southern Africa, France, Latin America, Brazil and California.

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene
Author: Anik Bhaduri
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2014-08-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319075489

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene provides the platform to present global and regional perspectives of world-wide experiences on the responses of water management to global change in order to address issues such as variability in supply, increasing demands for water, environmental flows and land use change. It helps to build links between science and policy and practice in the area of water resources management and governance, relates institutional and technological innovations and identifies in which ways research can assist policy and practice in the field of sustainable freshwater management. Until the industrial revolution, human beings and their activities played an insignificant role influencing the dynamics of the Earth system, the sum of our planet‘s interacting physical, chemical, and biological processes. Today, humankind even exceeds nature in terms of changing the biosphere and affecting all other facets of Earth system functioning. A growing number of scientists argue that humanity has entered a new geological epoch that needs a corresponding name: the Anthropocene. Human activities impact the global water system as part of the Earth system and change the way water moves around the globe like never before. Thus, managing freshwater use wisely in the planetary water cycle has become a key challenge to reach global environmental sustainability.

The Global Water Crisis

The Global Water Crisis
Author: David E. Newton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2016-04-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

How is water scarcity becoming a serious problem worldwide—including in the United States? This book provides a broad overview of water, sanitation, and hygiene problems faced by both developing and developed nations around the globe and suggests how these problems can be solved by imaginative and innovative thinking. Human society depends on sufficient clean water. In many parts of the world, however, this most basic commodity is in very short supply. Even in developed, first-world nations, climate change and other factors have begun to create alarming water supply issues. The Global Water Crisis: A Reference Handbook provides a detailed overview of this important topic, enabling readers to understand the nature of the world's water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) problems and to know what resources are best for conducting their own research on the topic. The first chapter of the book provides the historical background information pertaining to the world's water and sanitation problems; the second chapter documents the problems, explores the issues, and presents potential solutions for understanding the nature of WASH issues. The other sections provide the needed resources for readers to study the issue of the global water crisis further: perspective essays, primary documents, biographical profiles, data and documents, an extended annotated bibliography, a chronology, and a glossary.

Environmental History of Water

Environmental History of Water
Author: Petri S. Juuti
Publisher: IWA Publishing
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2007-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1843391104

The World Water Development Report 2003 pointed out the extensive problem that: 'Sadly, the tragedy of the water crisis is not simply a result of lack of water but is, essentially, one of poor water governance.' Cross-sectional and historical intra-national and international comparisons have been recognized as a valuable method of study in different sectors of human life, including technologies and governance. Environmental History of Water fills this gap, with its main focus being on water and sanitation services and their evolution. Altogether 34 authors have written 30 chapters for this multidisciplinary book which divides into four chronological parts, from ancient cultures to the challenges of the 21st century, each with its introduction and conclusions written by the editors. The authors represent such disciplines as history of technology, history of public health, public policy, development studies, sociology, engineering and management sciences. This book emphasizes that the history of water and sanitation services is strongly linked to current water management and policy issues, as well as future implications. Geographically the book consists of local cases from all inhabited continents. The key penetrating themes of the book include especially population growth, health, water consumption, technological choices and governance. There is great need for general, long-term analysis at the global level. Lessons learned from earlier societies help us to understand the present crisis and challenges. This new book, Environmental History of Water, provides this analysis by studying these lessons.

Global Water Funding

Global Water Funding
Author: David Lloyd Owen
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2020-07-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030494543

Is safe and sustainable water and sanitation for all an unaffordable pipedream? This book surveys the worldwide development of water and sewage services and the challenges in meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) along with climate change, population growth and urbanisation. It explores the reasons why current SDG6 progress is failing, including weak policy implementation, staff shortages and inadequate funding, as well as the limited impact of aid funding. The author contends that despite a series of innovations, debt finance remains too small to address needs of developing economies. Therefore, instead of advocating new funding, this book proposes addressing the funding gap through technological innovation and more efficient management and procurement through a series of examples that have challenged traditional assumptions. After four decades of good intentions, SDG6 is making a difference in monitoring shortfalls for the first time, allowing for more effective responses. This book outlines the role of innovation in hardware development, procurement and installation, and discusses how network management and operations can most effectively address funding gaps. The potential for savings is considerable, if effectively replicated. New approaches are driving forward affordable resilience, including nature-based solutions such as upstream habitat enhancement to retain water and improve downstream water quality; the circular economy, including water, nutrient, energy and heat recovery from wastewater; and demand management. This book will be of great value to scholars, policy makers and practitioners interested in the global finance of sustainable water and sanitation.

Water in Crisis

Water in Crisis
Author: Peter H. Gleick
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 473
Release: 1993
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780195076288

Among the most compelling environmental issues of today and tomorrow are those concerning the world's fresh water resources. Peter H. Gleick's important new volume, Water in Crisis, addresses the timely and sometimes controversial aspects of world water use. At stake are water quality, quantity, and possible future conflicts over shared international water resources. Nine essays by leading specialists from fields as diverse as hydrology, zoology, and law, among others, cover such issues as the status of developments in international water law; hydroelectric power; the possible effects of climatic change on water resources; and the state of fresh water fisheries. Particular chapters explore access to clean drinking water and sanitation; the use of water for energy and food production; the quality of rivers, lakes, and inland seas; and the condition of natural aquatic ecosystems. A joint project of the Pacific Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute, this book is a comprehensive guide to the world's fresh water resources. Hydrologists, engineers, policy makers, professionals in the environmental sciences, as well as lay readers will find Water in Crisis a dynamic resource and information-packed reference. More than 200 tables of fresh water data supplement this important volume.