The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future Peter Gleick New York: Public Affairs 2023

Quoting Pindar, Water is the best of all things, the author starts his book. As the title indicates, Gleick  divided the history of water into three historical periods, which he claims existed with the formation of planet Earth.  The first period, from Earth's beginning to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the ice age's completion and prior to the pre-industrial and pre-urban age. 

The 17th and 18th centuries marked the beginning of the second age, when urbanization of human populations increased. To manage water,

"we learned to manipulate the natural hydrologic cycle for our benefit; unlock the biological, chemical, and physical properties of water; created the tools to take advantage of our new scientific understandings; and replumbed the entire planet" (p. 3). The Black Death, poor sanitation systems, and disease promoted a scientific approach to water. The major  dams, aqueducts, transmountain diversions, canals, and irrigation systems, potable water distribution systems, levees, storm water systems are products of this age. Simultaneously, we dumped the byproducts of the age, waste, pollution "pollutants like mercury, lead, pesticides, and complex agricultural and industrial chemicals" (p. 4).  Fires on rivers caused by industrial waste--the Cuyahoga in Ohio in 1969, the River Rouge in Michigan, the Meiyu River in Wenjzhou in China in 2014, and in 2015 the Ballandur Lake in Bangalore, India. In addition to having to remove chemicals and waste, liquid and solid, from water, we faced during the second period water depletion of rivers and aquifers, wetlands, streams, and forests. With a fixed water resource on the planet, contention grows between regions, nations, and geographies. To illustrate this, the author noted, "violence over water in lands along the Tigris and Euphrates has never really stopped as the rivers and political powers there have waxed and waned" (p. 75). 

The third age, according to Gleick, consists of our future actions. "where we address the growing failures surrounding us and make the technological and social transition to sustainability" (p. 6). Faced with droughts, flooding, drastically changing climate, and scientists increased understanding of weather patterns and improved forecasts, what choices and what decisions confront us? Scientists have warned that greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere will become trapped with resulting consequences to the climate. The author contended that, contrary to common perception, humans are not running out of water, "In the early decades of the twenty-first century, total human withdrawals of water were around 4,000 cubic kilometers per year, out of a global freshwater stock estimated to be as much as 35 million cubic kilometers. The worries about water must be about something else. And, of course, they are: water problems are problems of time, space, money, and institutions" (p. 214-215). To distinguish the types of water available to humans, the author divided the natural resource into three categories: peak renewable water, peak nonrenewable water, and peak ecological water. Peak renewable water consists of water engaged in the hydrologic cycle and its recharge and replenishment of itself. In contrast, peak nonrenewable water refers to ground water, a resource subject to depletion. The last, peak ecological water, "is the idea that every measure of water taken from a natural ecosystem has either a societal or economic benefit, depending on what it is used for, and a cost to the ecology of the river or watershed" (p. 217). 

 

For the third age of water, the author promotes five principles. The first reiterates the United Nations goal of water for all as a right, satisfying fundamental basic human needs for health and sanitation. The second, acknowledging the real value of water to humans and the environment. Third, protect the ecosystems that determine the quality and quantity of water resources. Next, improve the efficient use of water, making it more productive. Fifth, utilize more effectively, all water varieties, wastewater, gray water, and storm water.