Water is central to all life, but we use it to destroy. Water can nourish, but we use it to starve. It can cleanse and unify, but we ensure it contaminates and divides. The consequences of continuing to desecrate or beginning to restore water's inner grace are tremendous-and will reflect as much on us as portend our future. Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as a water engineer, negotiator, and scholar, Mark Zeitoun provides a unique insider's account of this phenomenon. He explains how unchecked assumptions about water mix with political and economic systems to create an insatiable and ruinous thirst for ever more water. He shows how we use water to lethal effect in wars, and demolish drinking-water systems with wanton disregard. He questions why we transform the most majestic of rivers into canals which spark international conflict and challenge our capacity for preventative diplomacy. The answers reflect more about our society than we might care to admit.
If we are to restore water's inner grace, Zeitoun argues, we should worry not so much about "saving" water, but think about what we do with it when it is in our hands.
Reflections draws on author Mark Zeitoun's decades of experience teaching and communicating complex water issues, and replaces widely held myths with new concepts from around the globe. He brings attention to the dissonance between how we view and feel about water and what we do with it, calling upon readers to develop an informed ethos of water that reflects the restorative nature of this essential resource.
Zeitoun's book reflecting on water use and abuse is a highly readable and accessible account of the complexities surrounding a topic which is fundamental to all our lives. It spans politics, history, sociology, philosophy and law as well as the practicalities of managing water and how this has evolved over time. It serves as an excellent primer for both specialists and non-specialists on an increasingly pertinent topic which interplays with climate change, armed conflict, and health - something which is increasingly relevant as waterborne diseases, their drivers and their impacts affect the most vulnerable in our societies.
