Water And The West

Author : Marc Reisner
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1440672822
Total Pages : 674 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cadillac Desert written by Marc Reisner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1993-06-01 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West. Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage. This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.

Author : Norris Hundley (Jr.)
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520260108
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Water and the West written by Norris Hundley (Jr.) and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Back in print for the first time in over ten years, this classic account of the numerous struggles--national, state, and local--that have occurred over western American water rights since the late 1800s is thoroughly expanded and updated to trace the continuing battles raging over the West's most valuable, and contentious, resource.

Author : John Fleck
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 1610916794
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Water is for Fighting Over written by John Fleck and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2016-09 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Illuminating." --New York Times WIRED's Required Science Reading 2016 When we think of water in the West, we think of conflict and crisis. Yet despite decades of headlines warning of mega-droughts, the death of agriculture, and the collapse of cities, the Colorado River basin has thrived in the face of water scarcity. John Fleck shows how western communities, whether farmers and city-dwellers or U.S. environmentalists and Mexican water managers, actually have a promising record of conservation and cooperation. Rather than perpetuate the myth "Whiskey's for drinkin', water's for fightin' over," Fleck urges readers to embrace a new, more optimistic narrative--a future where the Colorado continues to flow.

Author : Heather Hansman
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022643267X
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Downriver written by Heather Hansman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Over its course it meanders through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some of the most significant natural gas fields in the country, as it provides water for 33 million people. Stopped up by dams, slaked off by irrigation, and dried up by cities, the Green is crucial, overused, and at risk, now more than ever. Fights over the river’s water, and what’s going to happen to it in the future, are longstanding, intractable, and only getting worse as the West gets hotter and drier and more people depend on the river with each passing year. As a former raft guide and an environmental reporter, Heather Hansman knew these fights were happening, but she felt driven to see them from a different perspective—from the river itself. So she set out on a journey, in a one-person inflatable pack raft, to paddle the river from source to confluence and see what the experience might teach her. Mixing lyrical accounts of quiet paddling through breathtaking beauty with nights spent camping solo and lively discussions with farmers, city officials, and other people met along the way, Downriver is the story of that journey, a foray into the present—and future—of water in the West.

Author : B. Lynn Ingram
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520954807
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The West without Water written by B. Lynn Ingram and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The West without Water documents the tumultuous climate of the American West over twenty millennia, with tales of past droughts and deluges and predictions about the impacts of future climate change on water resources. Looking at the region’s current water crisis from the perspective of its climate history, the authors ask the central question of what is "normal" climate for the West, and whether the relatively benign climate of the past century will continue into the future. The West without Water merges climate and paleoclimate research from a wide variety of sources as it introduces readers to key discoveries in cracking the secrets of the region’s climatic past. It demonstrates that extended droughts and catastrophic floods have plagued the West with regularity over the past two millennia and recounts the most disastrous flood in the history of California and the West, which occurred in 1861–62. The authors show that, while the West may have temporarily buffered itself from such harsh climatic swings by creating artificial environments and human landscapes, our modern civilization may be ill-prepared for the future climate changes that are predicted to beset the region. They warn that it is time to face the realities of the past and prepare for a future in which fresh water may be less reliable.

Author : Char Miller
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Water in the West written by Char Miller and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively primer on the region's most precious and scarce resource, drawn from the pages of the newspaper that sets the standard for coverage of environmental issues in the West.

Author : West Marrin
Publisher : Inner Ocean Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781930722156
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Universal Water written by West Marrin and published by Inner Ocean Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water was once considered an anomalous substance indigenous to planet Earth, but science has recently discovered water everywhere: from the coldest depths of interstellar space to the nuclear infernos within stars. This seems to validate ancient wisdom that maintained everything in creation is but a unique expression of this sacred liquid. Baffled by some of water's most recognizable features, science is only now beginning to give credence to such claims. In the twenty-first century, we face monumental decisions about water that will affect not only the future quality of our lives, but all species on our planet. The author insists that we need a broader context from which to act regarding our threatening water crisis. He offers a fascinating synthesis of ancient mythology and space-age water science to create a radically new perspective. Marrin asks us, Can we continue to treat water as a mere commodity?

Author : Stephen Grace
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 076278587X
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dam Nation written by Stephen Grace and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the scramble to claim water rights in the West during the fevered days of early emigration and expansion, running out of water was rarely a concern, and the dam building fever that transformed the West in the 19th and 20th centuries created a map of the region that may be unsustainable. Throughout the arid American West, metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver need water. These cities are growing, but water supplies are dwindling. Scientists agree that the West is heating up and drying out, leading to future water shortages that will pose a challenge to existing laws. Dam Nation looks first to the past, to the stories of the California gold rush and the earliest attempts by men to shape the landscape and tame it, takes us to the “Great American Desert” and the settlement of the west under the theory that "rain follows the plow," and then takes on the ongoing legal and moral battles in the West. Author Stephen Grace, is a novelist, a storyteller, and the author of several non-fiction books on Colorado. He weaves the facts into a compelling narrative that informs, entertains, and tells an important story.

Author : David Owen
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735216096
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Where the Water Goes written by David Owen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wonderfully written…Mr. Owen writes about water, but in these polarized times the lessons he shares spill into other arenas. The world of water rights and wrongs along the Colorado River offers hope for other problems.” —Wall Street Journal An eye-opening account of where our water comes from and where it all goes. The Colorado River is an essential resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. David Owen traces all that water from the Colorado’s headwaters to its parched terminus, once a verdant wetland but now a million-acre desert. He takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, reservoirs, power plants, farms, fracking sites, ghost towns, and RV parks, to the spot near the U.S.–Mexico border where the river runs dry. Water problems in the western United States can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: just turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers. But a closer look reveals a vast man-made ecosystem that is far more complex and more interesting than the headlines let on. The story Owen tells in Where the Water Goes is crucial to our future: how a patchwork of engineering marvels, byzantine legal agreements, aging infrastructure, and neighborly cooperation enables life to flourish in the desert—and the disastrous consequences we face when any part of this tenuous system fails.

Author : Eric Kuhn
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816540055
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Science Be Dammed written by Eric Kuhn and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Be Dammed is an alarming reminder of the high stakes in the management—and perils in the mismanagement—of water in the western United States. It seems deceptively simple: even when clear evidence was available that the Colorado River could not sustain ambitious dreaming and planning by decision-makers throughout the twentieth century, river planners and political operatives irresponsibly made the least sustainable and most dangerous long-term decisions. Arguing that the science of the early twentieth century can shed new light on the mistakes at the heart of the over-allocation of the Colorado River, authors Eric Kuhn and John Fleck delve into rarely reported early studies, showing that scientists warned as early as the 1920s that there was not enough water for the farms and cities boosters wanted to build. Contrary to a common myth that the authors of the Colorado River Compact did the best they could with limited information, Kuhn and Fleck show that development boosters selectively chose the information needed to support their dreams, ignoring inconvenient science that suggested a more cautious approach. Today water managers are struggling to come to terms with the mistakes of the past. Focused on both science and policy, Kuhn and Fleck unravel the tangled web that has constructed the current crisis. With key decisions being made now, including negotiations for rules governing how the Colorado River water will be used after 2026, Science Be Dammed offers a clear-eyed path forward by looking back. Understanding how mistakes were made is crucial to understanding our contemporary problems. Science Be Dammed offers important lessons in the age of climate change about the necessity of seeking out the best science to support the decisions we make.