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.

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.

"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.

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.

Hardcover plus CD

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.

"[A] gorgeously illustrated compendium."--Sunset This lavishly illustrated atlas takes readers off the beaten path and outside normal conceptions of California, revealing its myriad ecologies, topographies, and histories in exquisite maps and trail paintings. Based on decades of exploring the backcountry of the Golden State, artist-adventurer Obi Kaufmann blends science and art to illuminate the multifaceted array of living, connected systems like no book has done before. Kaufmann depicts layer after layer of the natural world, delighting in the grand scale and details alike. The effect is staggeringly beautiful: presented alongside California divvied into its fifty-eight counties, for example, we consider California made up of dancing tectonic plates, of watersheds, of wildflower gardens. Maps are enhanced by spirited illustrations of wildlife, keys that explain natural phenomena, and a clear-sighted but reverential text. Full of character and color, a bit larger than life, The California Field Atlas is the ultimate road trip companion and love letter to a place.