by RFF News
2. June 2010 09:44
With the challenges of climate change and a growing population, few environmental issues command the urgency of water. Johnny Grimond, writer-at-large for The Economist recommends Tushaar Shah’s Taming the Anarchy: Groundwater Governance in South Asia (RFF Press, 2008) as a best background book on managing water resources, "a sobering account of water depletion in the Indian subcontinent." Taming the Anarchy critiques traditional models of water governance, exploring how a once orderly South Asian irrigation system, which has been credited with saving millions of rural poor from famine and drought, has now become a vast and dangerous chaos of roughly 25 million individually owned groundwater wells.
A special report on water appears in the May 22nd print edition of The Economist, and includes features on regional water management, managing competing demands, hydro projects, and more.
The Economist has got it right: “Scarce or plentiful, water is above all local.” Check out the ongoing RFF Press Issues in Water Resource Policy Book Series for in-depth looks at water policy across regional contexts, including Australia, The Netherlands, Arizona, and Jordan.
