Resources: Video
Brian Collins, J. Carl Ganter and Ric Grefé: Interview
Published on: Tuesday, August 12, 2008
About this video
This interview with J. Carl Ganter, an expert partner developer and Brian Collins, a designer on this project, has been made specifically to offer extra support and insight to students working on the project.
Resources on Water
Thousands of data points are available online and elsewhere citing core statistics on the water crisis—from cholera deaths to bottled water consumption to river flows—as well as the massive challenge of preserving the supplies and infrastructure in the developed world in the face of climate change and population growth. Here are some resources from which to begin exploration of the water crisis.
World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP)
This United Nations program seeks to develop the tools and skills needed to achieve a better understanding of those basic processes, management practices and policies that will help improve the supply and quality of global freshwater resources. Every three years, in conjunction with the World Water Forum, it publishes the World Water Development Report (WWDR), a comprehensive review of the state of the world’s freshwater resources that aims to provide decision-makers with the tools to implement sustainable use of our water.
Aquastat
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations produces Aquastat, a comprehensive information system on water resources and agricultural water management throughout the world, but with an emphasis on countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) / Wilson Center
The Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan institute for advanced study, provides numerous resources on global challenges and their links to conflict, human insecurity and foreign policy. Through the Navigating Peace Initiative it is generating new debate and thinking on critical water problems, such as Water Stories: Expanding Opportunities in Small-Scale Water and Sanitation Projects, which examines the success of small-scale, community-based water and sanitation efforts.
Additionally, ECSP’s China Environment Forum is active in creating programming and publications to encourage dialogue among U.S. and Chinese scholars, policymakers, businesses and nongovernmental organizations on environmental and energy challenges in China.
The World’s Water / Pacific Institute
The World’s Water is a program of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security. It produces a biennial report that provides detailed analysis of the most significant trends and events as well as up-to-date data on water resources and their use. The reports are essential references for water resources specialists, resource economists, planners, students and anyone concerned with water issues.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Resouces
USGS is a multidisciplinary science organization focusing on the timely, relevant and impartial study of the planet’s landscape, natural resources and the natural hazards that threaten us. It features comprehensive real-time and historical water data for the nation, as well as maps and publications.
Global Water Partnership
The Global Water Partnership’s mission is to support countries in the sustainable management of their water resources. Its Integrated Water Resources Management ToolBox is a compendium of good practices, featuring an organized collection of peer-reviewed case studies submitted by external contributors.
Circle of Blue
Circle of Blue is an international network of leading journalists, scientists and communications designers that reports and presents the information necessary to respond to the global freshwater crisis. The site includes features such as Water News, a daily for source for international water news, and Reign of Sand, reports from the water crisis in Inner Mongolia.
Gapminder
Gapminder is an information graphics tool that provides a new way to see global development data. A nonprofit venture, Gapminder was founded to promote sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.
Worldmapper
Worldmapper is a new way to see data as a map: 366 maps, with associated information and PDF “poster” files, are available, and each map relates to a particular subject. The maps and data files cover 200 territories, mainly United Nation Member States plus a few others to include at least 99.95 percent of the world’s population.
Water: H2O = Life / American Museum of Natural History
Water: H2O = Life is an exhibition produced by the American Museum of Natural History, where it ran until late May 2008, before traveling to the San Diego Natural History Museum (on display from July 19–November 30, 2008). However, the AMNH’s exhibition website remains a plentiful resource on the subject.
Recommended books
Although The Bird in the Waterfall is out-of-print, it is well worth finding at your local library or purchasing a used copy on Amazon. A frequent contributor to Smithsonian and Wildlife Conservation magazines, Dennis shares his fascination with bodies of water while discussing why water changes color, how dowsing locates subterranean springs, what causes ocean currents, how a lake freezes and why rivers meander (contrary to what seems most logical, rivers meander because flowing water seeks consistency and tries to deepen shallows, fill in deep spots, and smooth out rapids and waterfalls).
Canadian antiglobalization activist Barlow calls for a blue covenant among nations to define the world's fresh water as a human right and a public trust rather than a commercial product. Barlow marshals facts and figures with admirable comprehensiveness, noting that as many as 36 U.S. states could reach a water crisis in five years; that once vast freshwater resources like Lake Chad and the Aral Sea are becoming briny puddles; and a handful of multinational water companies, abetted by World Bank monetary policies and United Nations political timidity, are bidding for the complete commodification of formerly public water resources.
Reisner tells the story of conflicts over water policy in the West and the resulting damage to the land, wildlife and Indians in this definitive history of water resources in the American West. A very illuminating lesson in the political economy of limited resources anywhere.
- Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource By Marq de Villiers
De Villiers examines the checkered history of humankind's management of water--which, he hastens to remind us, is not a renewable resource in many parts of the world. One of them is the Nile River region, burdened by overpopulation. Another is the Sahara, where Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi is pressing an ambitious, and potentially environmentally disastrous, campaign to mine deep underground aquifers to make the desert green. Another is northern China, where the damaging effects of irrigation have destroyed once-mighty rivers, and the Aral Sea of Central Asia, which was killed within a human lifetime. And still another is the American Southwest, where crops more fitting to a jungle than a dry land are nursed. De Villiers travels to all these places, reporting on what he sees and delivering news that is rarely good.
- The World's Water 2006–2007: The Biennial Report on Freshwater by Peter H. Gleick, Heather Cooley, David Katz, and Emily Lee
Produced biennially, The World's Water provides a timely examination of the key issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. This new volume contains an updated chronology of global conflicts associated with water, as well as an assessment of recent water conferences, including 4th World Water Forum. It also offers a brief review of issues surrounding the use of bottled water and the possible existence of water on Mars. Overview chapters include: water and terrorism; business risks of water; water and ecosystems; floods and droughts; desalination; environmental justice and water. From perhaps the world's leading authority on water issues, The World's Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources and the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with them. It is an essential reference for water resource professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use.
