Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity (Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series) - Hardcover

Postel, Sandra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393034283 ISBN 13: 9780393034288

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1992

Synopsis

Argues that a long history of mismanagement of water resources has endangered our water supplies, suggests ways to conserve water, and discusses the economic, political, and social aspects of water

About this title

About the Author:

Sandra Postel lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she directs the Global Water Policy Project. She is a Pew Fellow in Conservation and the Environment and a former vice president for research at the Worldwatch Institute. Her previous book, Last Oasis, now appears in eight languages and was the basis for a PBS television documentary.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

By far the greatest gains lie in redirecting water used in cities and towns for a second use on farms. Though typically viewed as pollutants, most wastewater constituents are nutrients that belong on the land, where they originated. Farmers worldwide spend heavily on chemical fertilizers to give their crops nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium that domestic wastewater contains in large amounts....By using municipal water twice-once for domestic use and again for irrigation-would-be pollutants become valuable fertilizers, rivers and lakes are protected from contamination, the irrigated land boosts crop production, and the reclaimed water becomes a reliable, local supply.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0393034283
• ISBN 13: 9780393034288
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 239