Reflections: Understanding Our Use and Abuse of Water

Water is central to all life, but we use it to destroy. Water can nourish, but we use it to starve. It can cleanse and unify, but we ensure it contaminates and divides. The consequences of continuing to desecrate or beginning to restore water's inner grace are tremendousDLand will reflect as much on us as portend our future. Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as a water engineer, negotiator, and scholar, Mark Zeitoun provides a unique insider's account of this phenomenon. He explains how unchecked assumptions about water mix with political and economic systems to create an insatiable and ruinous thirst for ever more water. He shows how we use water to lethal effect in wars, and demolish drinking-water systems with wanton disregard. He questions why we transform the most majestic of rivers into canals which spark international conflict and challenge our capacity for preventative diplomacy. The answers reflect more about our society than we might care to admit.

If we are to restore water's inner grace, Zeitoun argues, we should worry not so much about "saving" water, but think about what we do with it when it is in our hands.

Author: Mark Zeitoun
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 03/10/2023
Pages: 136
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 9.34h x 6.37w x 0.57d
ISBN13: 9780197575123
ISBN10: 0197575129
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Public Policy | Environmental Policy
- Business & Economics | Development | Sustainable Development
- Nature | Ecosystems & Habitats | Forests & Rainforests

About the Author

Dr. Mark Zeitoun's research focuses on international transboundary water conflict and cooperation, the influence of armed conflict on water services, and the links between water and health. This stems from his work as a humanitarian-aid water engineer, and advisor on water security policy and transboundary water negotiations throughout the Middle East and Africa. He studied engineering at McGill University in Montreal and human geography at King's College London.