When the Rivers Run Dry:

What Happens when Our Water Runs Out by Fred Pearce


BOOK: WHEN RIVERS RUN DRY

Introduction
Water Demand
Startling Statistics
Further Information

Introduction
Fred Pearce is a respected freelance writer on environmental, development and demographic issues. In his latest book he has spent five years examining the water situation world wide.

After a dry winter the SE is already being threatened with water restrictions. In the UK a survey in 2004 indicated that seven new reservoirs were planned and planners were reviewing plans for a national grid.

Yet 30 years ago the public sector predecessors of Thames Water concluded that repairing leaking mains and fitting new valves to toilet cisterns would be cheaper and as effective as building a new reservoir. We lose between 20% and 30% of water before it reaches the customer through leaking mains, but water engineers are fixated on large schemes rather than controlling the demand side or managing water more effectively.



Water Demand
The largest demand on water is for irrigation; the UK is uses a relatively modest amount of water for agriculture, but with climate change and drier winters this is likely to change.

Worldwide demand for water has increased; the green revolution of high yielding varieties are only green when land use is considered, they are generally worse than the crops they replace, “They produce less crop per drop”.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation say that at least a third of the world’s agricultural land “water rather than land is the binding constraint”.



Startling Statistics
Pearce gives some startling statistics: to grow a kilo of rice takes between 200 and 500 litres of water; to fill a kilo jar of coffee requires 20,000 litres, while a litre of cow’s milk requires 4,000 litres for fodder.

With the Aral Sea an ecological disaster and major rivers worldwide dry for long periods or in some cases where water has been diverted, permanently Pearce uses the phrase a “new water ethic” bases on sustainability, ecology and sharing.

Eden Books February 2006. ISBN 1903919576 List price £18.99