Thirsty Planet

By the year 2025 nearly 2 billion people will live in regions or countries with absolute water scarcity, even allowing for high levels of irrigation efficiency. In the face of this emerging global water crisis, how should the planet's water be used and managed in the 21st century? Current international water policy sees nature competing with human uses of water. Hunt takes issue with this perspective. She suggests that nature is the source of water and only by making the conservation of nature an absolute priority will we have water in the future to apply to human uses. This book looks at the complexity of the problem; it provides a wide array of ideas, information, case studies and ecological knowledge--often from remote corners of the developing world--that could provide an alternative vision for water use and management at this critical time.