"Water may soon be one of our most valuable commodities. The growing demands made on a finite resource by an increasing number of people adopting urban lifestyles and western diets, coupled with a changing and less predictable climate, are putting pressure on the planet's freshwater supply as never before. By 2025, four billion people may be living in conditions of water stress. And even where water is plentiful, the poor are unlikely to have ready access to a safe, cheap supply. The new edition of this timely atlas analyzes the latest thinking and emerging issues. Completely updated, it maps the competing claims on limited water resources--made by farmers, industrialists, and householders--and investigates the nature of the resource, its uses and abuses, as well as the vexed question of how it can be managed equitably"-- Page 4 of the cover.

Originally published in 1979, The California Water Atlas, a monument of 20th century cartographic publishing, has been scanned and put online for free public access by the David Rumsey Map Collection. Linda Vida, Director of The Water Resources Center Archives of the University of California asked David Rumsey and Cartography Associates to scan and make available to the public this extraordinary book. The copyright holder, the California Governor's Office of Planning and Research, agreed to allow free public access online. The book was digitized at very high resolution so the resulting images can be explored, revealing all the amazing detail in the many diagrams, maps, and illustrations that accompany the extensive text. The original work was a collaborative effort involving many individuals in and outside the government of then Governor Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown, Jr., including William L. Kahrl, Project Director and Editor; William A. Bowen, Cartography Team Director; Stewart Brand, Advisory Group Chairman; Marlyn L. Shelton, Research Team Director; David L. Fuller and Donald A. Ryan, Principal Cartographers; and many others who contributed to the project. ~ David Rumsey Map Collection blog, January 21, 2010.

Addresses a wide range of topics on water use, re-use and control, and offers details on water distribution worldwide and profiles of vulnerable regions, giving a global picture of the water industry.

Rainfall, hurricanes, rivers, reservoirs, springs, lakes, aquifers, wetlands, floodplains, water parks, irrigation, wells—the list of water-related topics in Texas is long and critical to the state’s economic and political future. Texas Water Atlas provides the first comprehensive reference for water-related topics in Texas. Geographers Lawrence E. Estaville and Richard A. Earl have compiled a host of data to visually convey vital information on Texas’ climate, surface and groundwater, water uses and hazards, water quantity and quality, recreation, future supply projections, and the environmental management of its water resources. In addition to more than 150 color maps, the book includes brief introductions to each chapter and a Texas water timeline that traces the state’s water events since European settlement. An excellent resource for teachers, students, and policy makers, the atlas promises also to be an invaluable tool for conservation professionals and the general public. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

Covering the global picture, this book provides an overview of our water consumption, as well as highlighting the scarcity and quality of our most critical resource in vulnerable regions such as California, the Middle East and India.

Hardcover plus CD

Obi Kaufmann, author of the best-selling California Field Atlas, turns his artful yet analytical attention to the Golden State's single most complex and controversial resource: water. In this new book, full-color maps unravel the braided knot of California's water infrastructure and ecosystems, exposing a history of unlimited growth in spite of finite natural resources--a history that has led to its current precarious circumstances. Yet this built world depends upon the biosphere, and in The State of Water Kaufmann argues that environmental conservation and restoration efforts are necessary not only for ethical reasons but also as a matter of human survival. Offering nine perspectives to illustrate the most pressing challenges facing California's water infrastructure, from dams to species revitalization, Kaufmann reveals pragmatic yet inspiring solutions to how water in the West can continue to support agriculture, municipalities, and the environment. Interspersed throughout with trail paintings of animals that might yet survive under a caring and careful water ethic, Kaufmann shows how California can usher in a new era of responsible water conservation, and--perhaps most importantly--how we may do so together.