NO-NONSENSE GUIDE TO WATER

Water is at once the most ordinary and the most extraordinary substance because, without it, nothing else survives. Today, global pressures on freshwater raise the spectre of pollution scares, irrigation shortages, rivers so massively dammed and diverted that they do not reach the sea, even of ‘water wars’ over dwindling supplies. This No-Nonsense Guide examines the world water crisis in its many dimensions, not least the recent tendency to try and manage water by handing over to private entrepreneurs not just the pipes, but the rivers, aquifers and rainfall supplying them. Water has always been regarded as a commons which nobody may own. As this basic principle erodes, can people hold onto their right to water – and to life?