Making the Most of the Water We Have: The Soft Path Approach to Water Management

Description

Editors: Brooks, David B.; Brandes, Oliver M., and Gurman, Stephen

Publisher: Co-published by Earthscan (London, England) and the international Institute for Environment and Development

Pub Date: 2009

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fair.  Without dust jacket, as issued.  Binding tight.  No marks, tears, bends or folds.  Very light edge and corner wear.  Without the dust jacket the boards have become slightly scuffed.  Appears unused.

Notes: Not conference papers.  The editor David Brooks is not the journalist David Brooks.  A GLOBAL approach to water management.  The “soft path” is an Amory Lovins idea, based on water and energy conservation and efficiency, renewables, and decentralized systems (think small scale, a la rooftop solar on every home).  “But soft pat approaches are not just about economic efficiency and improving economic returns to water….The soft path approach is not just about more crop and jobs per drop.  It also addresses the issues of the sustainable management of water.  More care per drop is also a high priority as it prevents the irreversible impairment of surface water and groundwater.  The soft path approach also recognizes the water-energy nexus.  This nexus…first, the production of clean energy from water; second the production of usable water with clean energy; and third, the extraordinary role of economic diversification, socio-economic development and trade in enabling environments and economies to be sustainable.”  (From the Foreword)  The foreword acknowledges potential problems: “…destruction of the atmosphere through the profligate use of fossil energy; the second is avoiding serious impairment of the aquatic environment as a consequence of using it as a sink for industrial and agricultural pollution.” (ibid.)