By Maggie Romuld

A View of the River

Luna B. Leopold

If you are curious about the form, flow and function of rivers, you will find A View of the River interesting and informative. In a clear and personal voice, Leopold explains what rivers do and how they do it, drawing on years of experiments for examples to simplify complex concepts. His affection for rivers is obvious and with only a little imagination you can picture him striding along a river bank, gauging staff in hand, field assistants in tow as he explains how to get data, why we need it, and with a minimum of mathematics, what the data means. This is not a summertime beach read but neither is it a dry, hydraulic engineering text. Still as relevant as when it was first published in 1994, there are dog-eared copies of this river study classic within arm's reach of every noted or up-and-coming river scientist in North America. Leopold described his book as a primer, an elementary textbook, but it is far more than that. It is a resource for scientists designing experiments to study future flows, a reference for students learning basic concepts of hydrology and geomorphology, and a solid foundation for those interested in gaining a deeper appreciation of river systems. You should read this book.

Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature

Sandra Postel and Brian Richter

In a healthy river, water levels are cyclical, fluctuating naturally on a time scale of hours, days, years or even decades. This pattern of flow, the "natural flow regime," is inherently variable and research has proven that this variability is critical to ecosystem function and biodiversity. However, as rivers are transformed by damming and diversion for water consumption, generation of electricity or flood protection, this pattern is altered and riverside and aquatic environments are impacted. In Rivers for Life, well-respected river scientists Sandra Postel and Brian Richter bring together their significant individual expertise to explore this concept of river need versus human demand, explaining why preserving or restoring natural flow patterns is crucial to healthy river systems, and how healthy rivers provide ecological goods and services that have been traditionally, woefully undervalued. They discuss efforts being made throughout the world to meet the challenges of managing natural systems and allocating increasingly limited flows, and they examine innovative river management policies, reforms and governance models for achieving those goals. Of specific interest to those concerned with water policy, resource management and planning, this book also provides a useful introduction to the state of the world's rivers for the curious public, explaining why we need healthy rivers, current threats to rivers from human activities and the varying levels of success of river restoration projects.

Water: The Fate of our Most Precious Resource

By Marq De Villiers

We are almost halfway through the United Nations Decade for Action - Water for Life and if you do nothing else to raise your level of awareness about the fate of water supplies around the world and the impact on human society, you should read Water. In this completely revised and updated edition of his Governor General's Award-winning book, Marq De Villiers tells you the story of water - where it is, where it isn't, and why some of it isn't fit to drink. Not just dams and irrigation, not only politics and greed, but the full range of the ecology, hydrology, philosophy and sociology of water. Well-written, well-researched and a pleasure to read, De Villiers has captured the depth and breadth of the subject, grabbing the reader's interest early and setting the stage by discussing the collision course between supply and demand. He then pieces together a global mosaic of technical and political waterscape issues, including the mistakes we've made, the ones we are destined to repeat and thankfully, the lessons we've learned. De Villiers is largely optimistic that innovation and human cooperation will provide the combination of solutions needed to see us out of our self-induced water woes but he is also realistic and discusses potential and, regrettably, probable inter- and intra-national water wars.