When The Rivers Run Dry: What Happens When Our Water Runs Out?

Editorial Reviews

"If ever a book has been written that demands to be read it is this one. This is that rare thing - a journey through a hugely important and complex subject in the company of a natural storyteller who makes you feel intelligent." - Tim Smit

"Of all the travel books I have ever read this is the most frightening, the most inspiring and the most important...A book every politician must be made to read and understand." - David Bellamy

"Environmental journalist Fred Pearce's book, When the Rivers Run Dry could not be better timed" - Robin McKie, The Observer

"...Pearce argues powerfully that unless mankind can rethink its whole attitude towards the use and misuse of resource, the consequence could be famine, pestilence and even war for huge numbers of human beings." - Trevor Grove, Daily Mail

"Veteran science writer Pearce (Turning Up the Heat) makes a strong - and scary - case that a worldwide water shortage is the most fearful looming environmental crisis. With a drumbeat of facts both horrifc...and fascinating...the former New Scientist news editor documents a 'kind of cataclysm' already affecting many of the world's great rivers." - Publishers Weekly

"Fred Pearce is an outstanding campaigning journalist and this terrifying yet ultimately optimistic book is a work of overwhelming importance" - Tam Dalyell

"Unlimited clean water is so utterly taken for granted that it slides beneath our consciousness, not worth thinking about. We should be grateful, then, that Pearce has done our thinking for us. He has not written a polemic. More evangelist than doomsayer, he writes with controlled passion about a subject that carries him to the edge of despair but in which he divines a few precious drops of hope...River by river, continent by continent, Pearce illuminates the folly of trying to control a natural force with concrete and steel...The lessons are there to be learnt. All those responsible for learning them should stay their hand until they have read this book." - The Sunday Times

"When the Rivers Run Dry is a timely book on an underreported issue...those who...take Pearce's tour through the global water crisis will be treated to an enriching and farsighted work." - Jai Singh, San Francisco Chronicle

"This book is a timely warning about the water crisis we face...His vision of a not-too-distant future where wars are fought over water is terrifying, but the book also offers solutions." - Country Living

"Pearce is a well-known and accomplished science journalist, so his journeys, plus his well-researched assessments, make his frightening conclusions all too convincing." - Paul Brown, The Guardian Weekly