Replenish The virtuous cycle of water and prosperity

Postel, a widely respected researcher and author on global water issues, challenges us to be more thoughtful about how we use fresh water: Use less of it, that is, and give some back to nature. She acknowledges the formidable challenges but provides a splash of optimism to counter the doomsday feeling. In the 20th century, societies dammed many rivers, depleted others and relentlessly pumped groundwater. The loss of habitats, especially wetlands, devastated fisheries and wildlife. Yet many water managers are embracing a new mind-set of working with nature rather than trying to conquer it. Postel tells a remarkable story of rejuvenation involving the Colorado Delta in Mexico. Upstream diversions dried up the delta decades ago. Yet in 2014, collaboration between the United States and Mexico, a binational team of scientists and conservationists, and several NGOs resulted in an agreement to turn the water back on. Watersheds, which Postel calls "nature's water factories," are receiving special attention as cities try to make their water supplies more resilient. In 2010 the city of Denver joined the United States Forest Service to establish the Forest to Faucet Partnership, which underwrote a tree-thinning program to make forests more fire-resistant while enhancing water flow. New York City has a remarkable water supply in the Catskills, but the city faced a dilemma in the 1990s. Unless it took steps to protect the watershed surrounding its reservoirs, the city would need to build a water treatment plant. Rather than spend upward of $10 billion on the plant, it spent less than $4 billion protecting and restoring the watershed. These and other stories - of cities conserving and reusing water, farmers engaging in "conservation agriculture," and a dam-removal movement that is restoring thousands of miles of free-flowing rivers - give substance to the idea of replenishing.

*Starred Review* The solution might not be as sexy as throwing large sums of money to access quality water. What if, argues Postel (The Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity, 2014), director of the Global Water Policy Project, we conserved this essential resource in innovative ways and explore other smart ways of using water instead? The galvanizing reasons behind Postel's push for water conservation should be common knowledge to most. After all, many will agree with her thesis that water crises, the biggest global risk to society, require a new understanding of our relationship to freshwater and a new way of thinking about how we use, manage, and value it. Eschewing mere hand-wringing about climate change, this clear-eyed treatise hops around the world outlining real-world solutions that are already being implemented to affect change on the ground. Postel makes her case eloquently, citing among other success stories the revival of the Colorado River Delta and the Loess Plateau restoration in China. Such inspirational examples, supplemented by an efficient overview of water-conservation ideas (sewer mining, anyone?), give cause to celebrate small pockets of hope in our fight to save the planet's precious and vulnerable freshwater.--Apte, Poornima Copyright 2017 Booklist