Bibliography 4: Riding the Water Cycle

Pearce, Fred. When The Rivers Ran Dry: Water—the definition. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2006.

            In a chapter of this book, Riding the Water Cycle, Pearce explains the basic water is constantly on the move and may not always be available to us humans. He goes on to say how 97% of the water in the world is salt water which we cannot purify due to high expenses. The rest of the water is fresh water which is divided up into glaciers and ice caps, and liquid water. He states how the greater part of the liquid water is underground in aquifers which are accessible to us for extracting but unless the aquifer is being recharged the water can be depleted to where wells run dry. Fred Pearce is a journalist who assembles small files of press clippings and wrote this book about the ‘journey of discovery on the world’s rivers’ (x).Pearce hopes to answer some pressing questions about the world’s water and is comfortable putting the fasts out in the open for everyone to see. His job shows no source of bias. This book is very similar to some of my other sources, which claim that there is a water crisis due to human consumption or interference.