Environmental Engineering Reference
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paradox of value”): while water is essential for survival, diamonds—which have only
aesthetic value—command a far higher price in the marketplace. Until, that is, water
runs out and panic sets in. At that point, humans will do almost anything to get their
hands on H 2 O. As Benjamin Franklin noted, “When the well runs dry, we know the
worth of water.”
Although we have not run out of water yet, we are wasting it, contaminating it, and
mismanaging it. This is not sustainable.
But not all the news is bad. We are learning to use water more efficiently than ever.
We have started to clean polluted wetlands, creeks, and the Great Lakes. We have re-
moved dams from rivers, which helps restore decimated fish populations and parched
floodplains. While plenty of states have warred in courtrooms over water rights, even
more have hammered out agreements to share water. Spurred by necessity, we have
learned to bank huge stores of water underground, and to transform seawater and even
human sewage into drinking supplies.
Each of these is an incremental step in the right direction, and together they signal a
growing awareness that water fit to drink will be one of the pivotal issues of the twenty-
first century.
Once you start paying attention to water, it is revealed to be a vast and constantly
changing subject, one that spans issues from the molecular to the cosmic. While this
topic is not encyclopedic, it attempts to describe some of the most signiicant water
challenges of today and to address the predicaments we will face in decades to come.
It ranges from the safety of our drinking supplies, to the rise of nitrogen-fueled dead
zones, the fragility of water tunnels and levees, the proliferation of ambitious water
pipelines, the conflicts over privatization and bottled water, the “resource wars”
centered on water, and the innovations that could save us from drowning or dying from
thirst. It explains how we came to this critical juncture and provides a vision of where
we go from here.
The scientists, schemers, and pioneers I encountered on the front lines of “the loom-
ing water crisis” are attempting to redefine our relationship to H 2 O: how it is managed,
when and where it is used, who uses it, what quantities are sustainable to use, and why
we use it. his topic is about the limits—and possibilities—of human reason when ap-
plied to water, the clear, odorless, and virtually tasteless resource that defines life.
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