The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century

by Alex Prud’homme

From the bestselling coauthor with Julia Child of My Life in France “a balanced and insightful assessment of what could emerge as the dominant issue in decades ahead” (Associated Press)—the fate of fresh water in the twenty-first century.

Will there be enough drinkable water to satisfy future demand? What is the state of our water infrastructure—both the pipes that bring us freshwater and the levees that keep it out? How secure is our water supply from natural disasters and terrorist attacks? Can we create new sources for our water supply through scientific innovation? Is water a right like air or a commodity like oil? Will the wars of the twenty-first century be fought over water?

As the climate warms and world population grows, demand for water has surged, but supplies of freshwater are static or dropping, and new threats to water quality appear every day. The Ripple Effect is Alex Prud’homme’s vividly written and engaging inquiry into the fate of freshwater in the twenty-first century.

Like Daniel Yergin’s classic The The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power , Prud’homme’s The Ripple Effect is a masterwork of investigation and dramatic narrative. Prud’homme introduces readers to an array of colorful, obsessive, brilliant—and sometimes shadowy— characters through whom these issues come alive. The Ripple Effect will change the way we think about the water we drink.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, Science, Nature, Politics, History, Sustainability

447 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2011

About the author

Alex Prud’homme is an American journalist and the author of several non-fiction books.

Reviews

[Keith Akers · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked about this is that it covered the politics of water very well. The author writes in an engaging style and it reads like a novel. What I didn't like was that the book is hopelessly anecdotal. The stories are great, the politics is well explored, this guy should be a journalist. But the analysis is perfectly awful. The promise of the subtitle ("The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century") is not met: the fate of fresh water is mentioned, but not discussed. In the end I compromised -- loved the stories, hated the analysis, three stars.

If you know absolutely nothing about water issues, this is a great place to start. Even if you know quite a bit but just want to know how the politics of water is evolving, you can benefit. But if you want a clue as to what the underlying problems are (hint: it has something to do with "limits to growth"), it's terrible. So your expectations and previous knowledge are important.

Early on I was quite impressed and was going to give it five stars, but quickly saw that he was just telling stories (albeit good stories). Skipping ahead to the end, I could see where he was headed: conservation, cloud seeding, desalination, water diversion, etc. I was sufficiently disgusted that I almost put the book down, but then started reading chapters at random. It was great. So in the end I read about 3/4, possibly all of the book. So here's your first clue about the book: it doesn't matter which chapter you start with, and it doesn't matter which chapter you end with. It doesn't build. This is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

I'm not sure that the author really understands the difference between water use and water consumption, although he seems to be aware of it at some level, because he briefly refers to evaporation issues. Water use is, well, using the water. It may be polluted, but can be used downstream if purified. Water consumption is water lost to the rest of the hydrological cycle. (Example: the Colorado River goes dry by the time it gets to the ocean). Consequently, it seems that the author does not understand that most water consumption is for irrigated agriculture (about 80% in the U. S.), although less than half of water USE is for agriculture.

The political angle which the author adopts means that discussion of agriculture (which is by far the most significant water problem we face in the world, period) gets short-changed. This is mostly determined, in the U. S., by livestock agriculture, which controls 80%-90% or so of all agricultural land. There are not as many hot political controversies about livestock agriculture as there are about, say, bottled water, Hurricane Katrina, or Bristol Bay in Alaska. That's because the livestock industry pretty much controls the narrative of agricultural issues in this country. He seems to be aware of these issues, because he mentions meat-centric diets and their effect on water, but it doesn't get much discussion. His narrative-driven focus, which looks for smoking guns and hot controversies, sacrifices analysis here.

And what about the fate of freshwater in the 21st century? Excuse me? Has anyone heard of "limits to growth"? Water should be the poster child for the whole limits to growth problem. There is only so much water, and because a lot of the water we are using right now is non-renewable groundwater mining, we not only cannot increase agricultural water use very much, we will likely actually need to decrease it. We have overshot the limits which we are only able to get away with by using "fossil water" (non-rechargeable groundwater). Yes, conservation will help, but anyone who thinks we are going to substantially increase agricultural production is dreaming. Also, he says that irrigated agriculture is "notoriously unproductive" (p. 352), what is he talking about? In terms of value of crops, irrigated agriculture is the most productive agriculture in the world. It is the basis of the Green Revolution.

He has mangled the whole water-energy problem. It takes water to get energy (certainly, at least, in Alberta), and it also takes energy to get water (water diversion projects, desalination, groundwater pumping). We need to look at both the energy return on water invested, as well as the water return on energy invested. If you do this, you will see that Alberta's tar sands can never even come close to providing the oil from "Kuwait, Norway, and Russia combined" (p. 289). Because of water limitations (and the energy return on energy invested, which is quite bad), it is like sucking on a huge resevoir with a minuscule straw. Yes, there's a lot of oil there, but the rate of flow will be quite slow and it would take hundreds of years for this volume of oil to be extracted. "Peak Oil" and "Peak Water" will put a fundamental damper on agricultural growth and on our ability to develop water supplies. In days of declining budgets, declining financial systems, and decreasing energy supplies, how are you going to build all of these big water diversion projects? Do we have the ability, in a post-peak-oil world, even to think about "Flipping the Mississippi"?

The whole problem of water just begs for an informed discussion of the fact that water imposes fundamental limits to growth on the human economy, especially in conjunction with other resource issues (such as peak oil, soil erosion, and climate change). In fact, I rather doubt that human population will ever reach nine billion people; as David Pimentel suggests, human population will likely go down because of agricultural restraints to something like two to three billion. We need an adult conversation about these issues. Alas, for such a discussion, we will have to wait for a future book.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the standout ideas in The Ripple Effect is that the wars of this century will be fought over access to fresh water, and by the end of the book, it's a believable proposition. Prud'homme divides the book into sections that cover pollution, drought, and flooding, and the ways those can impact people's lives in the U.S. (The focus is mostly on water issues in America, though he does give a little attention to the rest of the world, and how global water needs can impact a country with seemingly enough water.) He then discusses some of the ways to fill the need for more clean water, like desalination plants and plans to channel water from the east to the western states. By the end, it's clear that the issues are complex, and will require a great deal of compromise and thought--which, given history, is not a terribly reassuring idea.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ripple Effect documents a set of problems and conflicts over water; this should be required reading for all involved in the water wars we suffer.
Highest recommendation.

[Fred Dameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two big take aways. One: the U.S. must start to charge for water at the actual rate that the water costs to get from source, to tap, to sewage treatment, to next user. Yes unless you are the first person to use water from a spring it most likely has been used before and has gone through a sewage treatment plant. Now this cost must apply after infrastructure has been replaced. The cost of replacement infrastructure should be born by the state. What ever that state is. In the case of a city the city should sell bonds or get federal loans to replace current water intake, purification, distribution, and sewage treatment. Old water infrastructure is the second take away. Infrastructure has to be replaced nation wide. The U.S. is loosing a trillion gallons a day to leaks. This much lose is just NOT sustainable.

On cost, according to the book most people use 13 to 16 gallons per day. Double that and give each person in a household 25 gallons per day at the current rate for your municipality. After that the rate should be triple per gallon. Case in point, in 2010 the year of publication water in the LA basin cost $37.00. Here in Abilene TX it cost me $67.00 and today cost's me $87.00. My water source, Ft Phantom Hill Lake, is 15 minutes from my house. The source for the LA Basin is either Lake Meade or Northern Cal water shed. It actually costs much more to move water from either source to LA. than people in LA pay. Actual cost after twice the minimum for life must happen. By doing so people will conserve and save this precious resource.

On infrastructure. Leaks are killing us. Although no nation wide leak lose is given; I believe, from the information provided, that a trillion Gal/day is a reasonable number. That's 365 triilion gal a year of fresh potable water. Saving this much water by replacing our water infrastructure is just common sense, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly than building dams. Water engineers need to embrace conservation and green technologies as part of the solution for our nations future water problems and needs.

Overall a must read for those concerned with our kids future and their ability to get a drink of cool crisp water.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

It wasn’t until I started reading this book that I realized I hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect from a book about water. Within the first twenty pages, however, I also realized Mr. Prud’homme was going to exceed whatever expectations I had about this topic. This is a tremendously well-researched and organized book, covering a vast array of topics and shaping the conversation about water into a complex but accessible treatise. It’s a fantastic survey of the state of water – and the laws, engineering, weather, pollution, policy, and society surrounding it – and left me feeling much more informed about this topic. I picked this book up on a whim, and I finished it feeling like it’s one of the most important books I’ve read this year. Highly recommended.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The coolest thing about this book is that I have been emailing back and forth with the author (who is directly related to Julia Child) and he has accepted our invitation to be the keynote speaker at our (Water For People, DC) World Water Day event! yay!

That said, this book is overwhelming and does not offer much info on any positive steps being taken to address the challenges outlined (which include the full gambit of disaster - pollution, drought, flood, conflict).

[C.J. Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alex Prud’homme’s book The Ripple Effect starts with a homicide. This is entirely appropriate for a book about “the fate of freshwater in the twenty-first century” (the author’s subtitle). Geetha Angara, a 43-year old hydrochemist, wife and mother of three, and the person responsible for assuring EPA water quality standards at a New Jersey water purification plant, was found dead at her work. Investigators determined that she had been “forcibly subdued” and thrown alive into a dark, icy cold, million-gallon concrete water tank with no possible way to escape. She drowned. Investigators concluded that her murderer was an employee at the plant, but there was not enough forensic evidence to determine who killed her. They just knew that her attempts to assure quality had not been popular with everyone working at the plant. Angara’s murder is a fitting reminder of how very serious the issue of water quality is now and will become even more so in the future.

Prud’Homme’s book is very comprehensive, very well researched, and covers all the major issues related to water supply and water quality. The book is also very well-written and fascinating to read, although quite scary when we realize how we are misusing our water resources. The situation with water is becoming worse and worse with climate change and human population growth.

This book covers: 1) water quality – a good statistic is to note that there were 560,000 violations of the U.S. Clean Water Act just between 2004 and 2009. Now with the Trump administration’s assault on the Environmental Protection Agency, we assume that things will get worse. 2) drought – there are multiple locations in the world where drought and accompanying wildfires are rampant, but we only have to think of Santa Rose, California in the summer of 2017 to see the problem; c) floods – think of recent hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. With climate change, intense storms with downpours and flooding are becoming more common; 3) the many ways we use water with minimal consideration of sustainability. For example, we use trillions of gallons of freshwater in energy production. We need increasing amounts of water for food production. Conflict breaks out both historically and contemporaneously when humans fight over water. We are privatizing water supplies in many places in the world, including the U.S. Of course, we continue to pollute water with all kinds of substances – among them, oil, plastics, and pharmaceuticals.

I was most interested in the sections on drought and water supply in the American Southwest where the future looks grim. And Prud’homme has a fascinating commentary on T. Boone Pickens and other water entrepreneurs’ who engage in “water mining” of the Ogallala Aquifer in the Panhandle of Texas where I grew up. Pickens and others have withdrawn huge amounts of fresh groundwater to pipe it to the Dallas-Ft.Worth metroplex…at a big price of course. The Ogallala is disappearing.

Although this book was published in 2011, it is definitely worth the read. The Ripple Effect gives context to the water supply and water quality issues we are reading about in the news every day. In the end, though, he is unable to provide a clear solutions or set of solutions to solve the water problem. Highly recommended, primarily to understand what has happened with water and what is happening with water. There are no easy answers, but we have to try or else....

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crossing the country many times through expert interviews, sharing anecdotes, and laying a groundwork of historical facts all contribute to an engaging nonfiction book that reads like a novel.

[Marlena]

Solid book - kinda skimmed through it for information a paper I was writing - very insightful

[Robert Ritzinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ripple Effect is a must read for anyone who cares about the environment and more importantly is conscientious about where his or her water comes from. I wanted to read this book because I thought I would become more informed about the water I drink much like I did about the food I eat from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food or even Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. While I certainly did learn a lot more about the problems surrounding water in The Ripple Effect, I am fearful those lessons will resonate less for me because of the complexity of the issues and the inability of the author, Alex Prud’homme, to come up with any tangible solutions.

The overall theme of the book is fairly obvious: the state of freshwater on Earth is in crisis. Whether because of population growth, wasteful consumption, pollution, deteriorating infrastructure, potential terrorism, cost or climate change, the demand for water will continue to grow while its supply is dwindling.

Prud’homme goes through in detail how those various reasons contribute to why our freshwater is in crisis. Prud’homme’s style is largely anecdotal, and that method is more effective in some cases than others. That is because many of the issues are larger than can be described when visiting a dam, a canal, a levee, etc. You get the feeling Prud’homme only scratches the surface on many of these problems, but that may be because there are no simple answers.

Case in point, one of the strongest chapters discusses the debate over private versus public water. As water is an essential resource for life, should anyone not be allowed access to viable drinking water simply because they cannot afford it? Just as important, who should maintain and provide that water supply? The debate over public utilities and private suppliers is not a simple one. While a public utility will provide water at a lower cost to the consumer, that potentially leaves that water at a greater risk to pollution, deterioration and waste, as there is less of an incentive (or lack of a profit motive) to thoroughly invest in structural improvements. The result is potentially greater costs over the long term.

And who owns the water? If someone owns the land, do they also own the groundwater in it and therefore be able to sell it? What if someone drains the water literally from under your feet? Do they owe you for the privilege? Again, although it may seem so initially, these are not easy questions to answer.

Another excellent chapter is the issue over bottled water. Firstly there is little certainty that the bottled water in the supermarket is any cleaner or better for you than the water out of your tap, and in fact many brands are no more than bottled and resold tap water. The environmental damage is vast also when you consider the energy costs to transport the water to consumers and dispose of the plastic bottles after use.

Yet another interesting discussion is the use of water in the extraction of natural gas and cooling of nuclear power plants. I was not entirely aware of how much big business uses water for power and if there is another common theme it is that yet again big business proves either its inability or unwillingness to be mindful or aware of pollution, waste or any other detrimental effects of an unbridled profit motive. Of course when any oversight is suggested to curtail these practices, big business then pushes its weight around in Washington to make sure the policy to “govern themselves” (which of course translates to “not at all”) remains intact.

But in an effort to not sound overly cynical, even in the most well-meaning cases, being mindful of waste and pollution is never simple. Take a complex issue like the desalination of salt water. It would seem like a relatively simple solution to want to try to change sea water into drinking water, but lots of energy is used up in process for little return, the extracted brine has issues with disposal and the removed sea water affects natural ecosystems.

The book cannot be completely recommended because the author does little in the way of offering solutions rather than just presenting the problems, which is still important. Nonetheless, it leaves the reader very cynical about the ability to change anything. If nothing else, it meant I agreed with Prud’homme that water will be the “oil of the 21st Century” and thus the world’s most coveted, fought over and premium resource.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was extremely pertinent to me because I work for my state's Water Quality Control Division. I actually learned a lot more about the actual water quality problems and challenges facing my division by reading this book than I have by working here for two and a half years. This book also reminded me that I practice conservation at home for reasons other than my own personal financial gain.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

p. 92

Dick Brame, a CCA fisheries scientist, described the Cheasapeake's ecosystem as "a patient that is dying of arterial bleeding, but he also has cancer. The arterial bleeding in this case is the overexploitation of species. The cancer underneath is the continuing decline of water quality. If you can't stop the bleeding, the cancer doesn't matter. But if you do, you still have to deal with the cancer."

[Greynomad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much going over ground that has been gone over before. Of course no one pays any attention until its too late and it hits the fan. I shouldn't be saying this but until you control population growth no matter how green you get the resources are going to disappear..........Just give us humans a little mote time and we won't have to worry at all as there will be nothing left

[David Smiadak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most complete book in detailing water issues that I have come across. The book describes the high political stakes of water both domestically and around the world. Also a very useful reference for detailing existing and emerging technologies for both water extraction and treatment. Good read for anyone interested in the topic.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it to become less of a water newb.

[Dennis Stimson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great information and thoughtful. Thank you!

[Hannah Lulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, I consider it essential reading. Homme covers so much of U.S. water logistics, from drought, to flooding, to declining water tables, human waste management, abusive and corrupt politics and development, pollution, and so much more. My biggest takeaway, aside from just the devastating effect that disrespect for the importance of water has had on our health, sustainability, security, and ecosystems, and that as humans we need to make drastically better decisions, is that wherever I move to in life, I want to make sure I know where my water is coming from--because a drought can hit, or my city could be stealing water, or simply just wasting and destroying it, and I want to make sure I am not contributing to the harm and wreckage. I'm also very much wanting to learn more about human waste management after reading this. I'm more convinced than ever that composting toilets are imperative for a healthy future, even in high density urban areas, so I hope the technology and infrastructure will soon exist to make this imperative measure a possibility.

There is one chapter where Homme astutely brings up the concern of chemicals such as hormones or hormone-like substances that end up in water supplies, mostly through human waste, that can then not completely be removed from water supplies and may pose a risk to aquatic ecosystems, and possibly human health. I would add a caveat that I think the way the author suggests that these substances can effect the human endocryn system--while it does seem like a valid concern--the example that is used of a trangender athlete facing controversy and exclusion, while not necessarily hurtfully intended, is somewhat irrelevantly, and therefore insensitively included in the chapter. I do not think this sullies the importance of Homme's overall argument in favor of water conservation, and research and criticism of the factors destroying water resources or their potential effects on human health, but it is something that may sit uncomfortably with readers.

[Nuri · Rating 3 out of 5]

My expectations of this book were to provide a bit of history and a well-researched document of our current state of water management.

The stories are varied, from western dry states to eastern wet states to the Alaskan wilderness. Examples are almost all American. Interviews with “water buffalos”, think tanks, and industry representatives are all very informative.

On the downside, I sense a definite bias in the text. I stand with the author on keeping our water resource public, even though plenty of private businesses help deliver it to where it is needed. However, I am less impressed when the narrative starts to sound political. I would like this book more if Prod’Homme gives us the facts and a series of impartial (as best can be) observations, and we as readers make political sense of it. And yes, I understand that human use of water is very political at times. Then more reason for good journalists to give us unfiltered truth.

Maybe the problem is that he takes too much reliance on interviews (he said this, and she said that) and to rely on that as the truth. I’d like to see more official documentation (tables and charts are OK!) to better comprehend what’s at stake.

[Lauren Schnoebelen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me state that I did not finish this book. I read the first of the three parts (so about 100 pages) but after talking with classmates I know my concerns with the book didn’t get resolved in the end.

This was a requirement for class and man am I disappointed in it. Im working on my masters in the hopes of going into water supply planning and I thought this would help my classmates understand this field. All lies. This book just focuses on problems, provides inaccurate information on the industry and doesn’t look at any solutions on how to address the issues. It also doesn’t really acknowledge how the EPA is told to enforce a lot of regulations without any funding or man power.

The only reason I’m giving this 2 stars instead of 1 is because by providing so many examples of water contamination in America it shows how the US government and society ignores these pressing concerns that are a requirement for survival.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched, informative, compelling and thought provoking account of the fate of the world's water through the use, and misuse by humans over the centuries. Vivid and engaging; this work brings to the surface several questions, and actions required on how and why to secure and meet the demands for human, and animal and nature's need for what is a limited, and yet sustainable natural and much needed resource.

[Ernie Zellner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very dry reading, quite like a textbook. It delves into the worldwide water shortage, how bad it is, how bad it is likely to get, and goes into good detail. Very informative if you like details.
Does a good job of describing the New York water system, including Water Tunnels No. 1, 2, & 3
If you care at all about the environment, this is a book you will want to read.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for class. Takes a pessimistic approach which doesn't always work in trying to implement change. Brings up very pressing issue in today's water policy. Only focused on the US. Some statements are very liberal and sweeping generalizations but otherwise a good book to get you thinking.

[Saeeda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.... While the book is well researched and contains lot of valuable insights, it is extremely dense and took me forever to get through. It's not poorly written by any means but it definitely could have been more concise and still just as informative.

[Fred Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Considering for a course on Science Policy. Had negative reviews from many previous students and my skimming agreed. Some non-fiction books can just catalog a bunch of stories and this seems to be one of those.

[Doug J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book! I really enjoyed it. Very informative.

[Preston Kutney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The "Blue Planet" we live on is covered with water. A casual (or extraterrestrial) observer would no doubt conclude that water availability issues seem unlikely on a planet two-thirds underwater. However, there is an important distinction missed in that conclusion - there is a difference between freshwater and seawater. Worldwide, available freshwater constitutes less than 1% of the world's supply of H20. Variability in the location, timing and quality of that water is the premise of this book.

"The Ripple Effect" is a thorough introduction to water resources issues, explored predominantly from a political and environmental perspective. Prud'Homme is clearly not an engineer or scientist and he writes about water as someone who gets the gist of the issue, but perhaps not the intricacies. The book is a tad anecdotal, but that is part of what makes it so readable, and Prud'Homme does a fantastic job of painting a compelling picture of each successive water issue. The book doesn't stray from conventional solutions and may be fairly criticized for a lack of vision, but cannot be faulted for leaving much out. One important shortcoming of the book is, in my opinion, its failure to directly address the "water-energy-food security nexus", which is the fact that these three factors of production are inextricably linked, and actions in any area have consequences in the other two. While many of the connections between water, energy and food are addressed, I was hoping for a more holistic targeting of this nexus as the center of gravity for water-related issues, and some discussion of how society can avoid simply making tradeoffs between the three areas and instead manage them mutually beneficially.

The book is well organized, and fairly modular; most of the subtopics can be read and understood independently from the rest of the text. Here is a brief summary of some of the topics covered:

- The history of water quality laws in the U.S., which surprisingly didn't exist until 1970, inspired by the Cuyahoga River fire and the publication of Silent Spring.

- The coverage of water quality laws, which effectively regulate point sources of pollution from factories, plants etc., but which fail to tackle non-point pollution, such as agricultural or urban runoff

- Agricultural runoff is the largest source of water pollution in the U.S. Excess fertilizers from concentrated animal feeding operations and overzealous farming get washed into the water system where the nutrients wreak havoc on ecosystems and catalyze hypoxic "dead" zones devoid of oxygen. The agricultural lobby has blocked attempts to regulate non-point water pollution.

- Climatologists predict that climate change will increase the number of extreme weather events, exacerbating droughts and flooding.

- Water rights laws in the eastern and western U.S. treat water dramatically differently. In the east, water is considered a part of the land, and surface water rights are only assigned to adjacent properties within the watershed for reasonable uses. In the west, water is treated as a commodity, property separate from the land, and transferrable outside of the watershed. Western water rights are also "first come, first serve", where senior rights are honored regardless of the relative significance of the use - this is one reason why farmers can grow low-value crops such as alfalfa using very valuable water.

- The checkered past of Los Angeles water - the surprisingly dramatic saga of how Los Angeles obtained its water rights, also the inspiration for the oscar-winning film Chinatown (a must-watch for any water resource engineer).

- The pros and cons of building dams, the beauty of a well-considered and well-built dam, and how there are no good dam sites remaining in the U.S.

- 7 of the nation's 10 costliest disasters have been floods.

- In a 2007 study by the US Army Corps of Engineers, 177 or 9% of federally managed levees were categorized as "expected to fail". The New Orleans levees were only considered the third most vulnerable critical levee system in the U.S.

- Privatization of water and the philosophical question: is water a commodity like any other or a fundamental human right?

- The Pacific Institute estimates that the total amount of energy used in the production of one bottle of water could be accurately represented by filling the bottle a quarter full with oil.

- The water-power nexus - huge amounts of water are used in the production of energy (power plant cooling, hydraulic fracking, tar sands processing), and water transport and treatment require significant amounts of energy (in California approx. 20% of all electricity is used to transport and treat water).

I would sincerely recommend this book to anyone interested in the environment or environmental policy.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a 2.5

This book is (obviously) not super optimistic, which I tried to separate out from my review. The overall organization of the book is good - there are 4 main topics: water quality, drought, flooding, and conflict/innovation moving forward. Chapters are a little less organized, I felt like we hopped around a bit within the larger section conversation. It got bogged down in policy at times-the history and evolution over 100 years. The last section on conflict/innovation was the most sporadic, jumping topics and locations the most. The Drought section was the best in my opinion - easiest to read and provided the most food for thought.

[Srikanth · Rating 4 out of 5]

In continuation of my previous piece on water, i am writing a short review on the book "The ripple effect" by Alex Prudhomme. The reasons that got me interested in water are


A. The days i started spending my time atop mountain top posts with nothing but Ice for water and was imagining what would happen if it doesn't exist, the enemy wouldn't need a WMD.


B. slowly started seeing water tanker jokes proliferate into mainstream movies.


C. When my parents in Viluppuram install a RO water purifier at their house.


and last but not the least our own MMS who refuses to at least acknowledge that Chinese are screwing us and most of Southeast Asia by Dams.


The book is interesting in its reach and the issues it tries to cover in the few pages with lots of names and data. The one draw back of the whole book is it covers and speaks only about the USA and no where else, this results in googling a lot of maps, rivers etc. But still there is no equivalent like this guy in India (at-least i have not come across any one except maybe Brahma chellany). There is so much that we take for granted when it comes to water that this should and can be made as a mandatory reading for collage and school kids with India as the context.


If i were a Man of some power and influence i would kidnap the author and make him write the same book with India in mind.

[Lance · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic is covered, however the promise of the title is not met. If one has been following the news at all and have an interest in the use and availability of water most of what is in this book is already out there. Drought in the southwest is not news. Drought in Texas old news. States and countries fighting over water--no surprise! The book is well documented, and many people should at least read parts of it.

The author also has pointed out many of the short comings of the governments to tackle water issues. The Mississippi watershed hass flooding now nearly annually and yet little has been done.

He also does a nice attack on the bottled water industry, but should have expanded to energy drinks, juices, beer and soda. Take a walk along any US highway, except in the states with high deposit laws.

The book centers on the US, and gives snap shots of some of the other regions of the world but is mostly about US. It also does not offer much hope for the future, except for the extreme rich people who can afford water at any price. As the book quotes 'In the Western United States, water flows uphill to money'--Glen Sanders. Which is now true of most areas now.

[Rev. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only gave this book four stars because I think it's important. The nuts and bolts of the book are not enjoyable in the least. However, simply because it's unpleasant to look at the train that is barreling down on you, does not mean that looking away will make it go away. The case for water's plight is strong in this book - so strong, in fact, that when Prud'homme is offering solutions near the end, that you just cease to believe him.
He spends so much time (and documentation - the book is about half footnotes) compiling evidence for how we've mistreated our most valuable and common resource that by the end, the reader very much knows that in order for anything to change, our attitudes have to come first. Unfortunately, by the end, the reader also has seen how likely that is before disaster.
Still, the ideas that he spreads about soft engineering are certainly worth looking knowing about. Perhaps I am being cynical to say that I don't believe that such change will happen before more horrific disasters, but this book could be a start in the direction away from that.