A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy

Juliet Christian-Smith, Peter H. Gleick, With Heather Cooley, Lucy Allen, Amy Vanderwarker, Kate A. Berry, and Foreword by William K. Reillly

OUP USA

336 pages | 235x156mm

978-0-19-985944-3 | Hardback | 23 August 2012

Price: £17.99

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Re-evaluates national water science and policy and offers guidance on integrating efforts now scattered among disparate and uncoordinated federal, state, and local agencies and departments
Explores how to deal with the risks of climatic change and makes recommendations for reducing international tensions over shared U.S. water resources
Provides a vision to ensure the physical security of the nation's water
Written by a group of national and international water experts, coordinated at the Pacific Institute - the world's leading independent center for science and policy on freshwater issues

As is becoming clearer and clearer, pressures on water resources in the United States are growing, with no foreseeable end in sight. Yet these pressures are not due to a national water scarcity. While the Southwest faces the problems of draught, a rising population, and over-allocation of resources, the Northeast and Northern Plains must deal with increasingly wet weather and flooding. The greatest challenges that the United States faces with regard to water are regional disparities in availability, a changing climate, worsening water quality, and, increasingly, controversies over management strategies and policies.
While many countries have adopted federal approaches to water management, the United States has no cohesive national water policy. In fact, the oversight of current water policy is shared by over sixty different agencies,and the last national water assessment undertaken in the United States occurred over forty years ago. The lack of coordinated oversight not only renders national policymakers unable to make informed analyses of water quality standards and availability, it also results in large gaps of understanding regarding variability of water resources and how to most efficiently and effectively manage and preserve those resources. A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy culls together independent analysis of freshwater availability; water usage in agriculture, municipalities, tribal settlements, and energy production; exisiting legal frameworks; environmental justice movements; and data on water quality and climate change. The result is a visionary proposal for a coherent and critically needed federal water policy.

Readership: National and local policymakers, scholars and students of environmental studies and policy, environmental law and justice, climate change, environmental management and science

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.

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