The Fluvial Imagination: On Lesotho's Water-Export Economy Volume 12


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Description

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Landlocked and surrounded by South Africa on all sides, the mountain kingdom of Lesotho became the world's first "water-exporting country" when it signed a 1986 treaty with its powerful neighbor. An elaborate network of dams and tunnels now carries water to Johannesburg, the subcontinent's water-stressed economic epicenter. Hopes that receipts from water sales could improve Lesotho's fortunes, however, have clashed with fears that soil erosion from overgrazing livestock could fill its reservoirs with sediment. In this wide-ranging and deeply researched book, Colin Hoag shows how producing water commodities incites a fluvial imagination. Engineering water security for urban South Africa draws attention ever further into Lesotho's rural upstream catchments: from reservoirs to the soils and vegetation above them, and even to the social lives of herders at remote livestock posts. As we enter our planet's water-export era, Lesotho exposes the possibilities and perils ahead.

Author: Colin Hoag
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 11/08/2022
Pages: 236
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.30w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9780520386341
ISBN10: 0520386345
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Anthropology | General
- Nature | Environmental Conservation & Protection | General
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | African Studies

About the Author
Colin Hoag is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Smith College.