This post orginally appeared at National Geographic's Voices blog 

 I was looking at a river bed

And the story it told of a river that flowed

Made me sad to think it was dead

(From the song “A Horse with No Name” by America)

Some of my favorite photographic images are those of the Earth filmed from satellites in space. In those breathtakingly beautiful images taken from such great disance, humanity’s footprint on our planet is hardly discernible.

It is also hard to find in those distant views the rivers and lakes that gave rise to great civilizations, and sustain us to this day through their provision of fresh water. This is not surprising, given that all of the world’s rivers and lakes combined make up less than 3% of the planetary land surface.

But sadly, upon closer inspection on the ground, we can see that those beautiful blue ribbons and pools have been shriveling across much of the globe as the human enterprise expands and our appropriation of their waters grows.

Some of the world’s largest rivers – the Colorado and Rio Grande of North America, the Yellow of China, the Brahmaputra and Ganges of Asia – have been drained of their waters, primarily to irrigate farmlands but also to support the growth of cities and industries. These rivers regularly dry completely before reaching the sea. They are joined in their anthropogenic desiccation by thousands of smaller rivers, now gone in whole or in part.

We hardly take notice of the drying of our rivers until they are entirely gone. How many of the residents of Austin, Texas know that the Colorado that flows through the heart of their city is in summer now only a tenth of what it once was?

Tragically, the list of heavily-depleted rivers is growing; fully one-third of all rivers on our planet are now regularly or occasionally diverted to near-dryness for human use.

Once a river is gone, our collective memory of it fades all too quickly. How many Mexicans living in the Colorado River’s delta region are old enough to remember when water continually flowed past their villages?

This is not just a calamity of fond memories lost. In recent years a novel blending of natural and economic sciences known as ‘ecosystem service valuation’ has emerged to study and monetarily quantify what we lose when a forest or wetland or river disappears. These scientists chronicle the values of water remaining instream to assimilate our wastes, or the importance of freshwater flows into downstream estuaries, where the mixing of fresh and salt water supports thriving fisheries. It is important that we more fully understand what we are losing when we exhaust our rivers.

But at the same time, we know that the fate of our planet’s rivers will not hang on the balance of intellectual or economic arguments. Ultimately, rivers will only be saved with our hearts. For me and for many of you, it is egregious enough just to know that the music of running waters, or the bird song high in the cottonwoods lining the river, is swiftly waning.

We now stand at a turning point in human history. We must make a conscious decision of whether we want rivers in our world, or not.

The disappearance of rivers is by no means a foregone conclusion. But that is the direction that we are headed, and we will need to act differently to change their fate.

With persistent drought and associated water shortages wracking California, the Colorado River basin, and other regions around the globe, we are hearing calls for the building of new reservoirs, water transport canals and pipelines to bring water in from great distances, or drilling deeper into our stores of underground water, all of which can add to the damage already done to our rivers.

I am sympathetic to the sense of urgency in places like California to secure additional water supplies. Yet we must turn away from further exhausting our rivers, and instead embrace the great opportunity to do more with less.

We are nowhere close to realizing our potential to use less water.

The US overall is today using the same volume of water that it used in 1980, with 80 million more people living here. We’re already well on our way to becoming a water-saving society. But we can do so much more, and thereby spare our rivers from further diminution. Evidence from other countries such as Australia or Israel demonstrates that we could reasonably cut our per-capita water use by half here in America. Cities in the western US use twice as much water, on average, than Australian cities, even though our economies and cultures are quite similar. Tucson, widely respected in the U.S. for its water thriftiness, uses twice as much as Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane or Sydney.

Read the rest at National Geographic

As the leading environmental publisher, Island Press is committed to spreading ideas that inspire change. Sometimes, that means taking those ideas straight to lawmakers. On February 8, Island Press partnered with Congressman Jared Huffman's office to co-sponsor a briefing on Capitol Hill on water scarcity and sustainable infrastructure. The briefing brought Brian Richter, a global leader in water sicence and conservation and author of Chasing Water, to Washington, D.C. to discuss water issues and policy with over 50 congressional staffers. We sat down with Richter to "debrief" the briefing, learn more about the key idea he hopes policymakers took away from the briefing, and discuss why he considered the event to be a resounding success. Have more questions for Richter or ideas for other Island Press briefings? Share them in the comments below. 

What role do expert scientists and professionals play in the policy process with lawmakers?

I think it’s critically important for scientists to identify problems existing in our world and to communicate them effectively. But it’s equally important to help design pragmatic responses or solutions to the problems. Here’s an example. In 2016, I published a paper with colleagues that very clearly pinpointed the places in the world where water shortages were occurring and documented that irrigated agriculture was consuming 85% of the water in those places. An obvious solution is to get irrigation farmers to use less water, while sustaining agricultural production. Last year, I worked with a team of researchers to identify credible, well-documented ways for farmers to save water and we published a paper to tell that story. Now it’s time for policymakers to incentivize implementation of those water-saving approaches we’ve identified!

Do you have any hope for how your briefing might impact future water infrastructure policy?

I’m always hopeful! But I’m also quite cognizant that, for some reason, human societies lack the ability to proactively respond to crises that are slow to develop, like water scarcity or climate change, no matter how strong the science and how destructive the consequences may eventually become. The history of water policy reforms suggests that legislation moves forward only when crisis is imminent, or when we’re in the thick of it. That’s why so many of us in the water community feel conflicted when a serious drought is emerging, such as we’re seeing in California and the Colorado River basin presently. We secretly pray for things to get bad enough to provoke legislative response, yet we don’t want people and ecosystems to get hurt in the meantime.

Since the publication of Chasing Water in 2014, US politics have become even more polarized and contentious. Did the current political climate impact your presentation in any way? Your expectations from the audience?

I think public attitudes about the environment and the economy have been shifting for a long time now. In the 1990s, biodiversity conservation was receiving a lot of attention, and you could make the case for sustainable water management using endangered species as a central argument for leaving water in rivers. I think that’s why the book Rivers for Life that I wrote with Sandra Postel in 2003 was well received at the time. But since the turn of the millennium, and particularly since the economic crisis of 2007-2008, I’ve found that my nature-based arguments are not nearly as resonant as economic arguments for sustainability. That’s why my presentation emphasized the economic consequences of water scarcity. I have always believed that if we truly managed our natural resources in an economically sustainable manner, our ecological systems would be in much better shape. Even though I say “biodiversity” or “nature” much less frequently now, I will always be a nature boy at heart.

Why is it so important to think about water shortages and managing water supplies at a local level? How can federal legislation help encourage this thinking?

The vast majority of our global population uses water that comes from a water source located pretty close to home. Our water usually comes from a river that flows through town, a nearby lake, or an aquifer beneath the farm. From decades of observation, I’ve concluded that the people who share these local water sources must be involved in decisions about how to manage that water. They should play a meaningful role in deciding who gets to use the water, and whether and what kind of rules might be needed to control use or pollution. When problems such as water shortages arise, those who are bearing the pain should have a say in how to fix the problem. The most hopeful stories I’ve studied come from places where community members have been empowered to become active participants in what I call “local water democracies.”

This does not mean that state or national governments or technical experts should not be involved, of course. In fact, they are usually essential in empowering local citizens with relevant information or data, or interpreting the laws that govern water. But history has clearly shown that the most sensible, robust, and durable water decisions are those seasoned with local input.

There was a lively question and answer session after your presentation. Did any particular question stand out to you?

Inevitably, someone always asks about "privatization" of water. That word evokes very strong emotional reactions, and those reactions are almost always negative. But I’ve found that when you peel back those feelings with an audience and explore what they are reacting to, you can help them better clarify what they feel is "right" or "wrong" about privatization. For example, I gave a talk at a Brazilian university that was followed by a panel discussion, during which each of the panelists took the position that no corporation should be allowed to use water. That’s blatantly absurd, of course, so I asked the audience whether they grew all of their own food and manufactured their own automobiles, and whether they hauled a jug of water from a river for their household needs today? The point is, we need corporations to use water in order to supply most of what each of us needs in our daily lives. The ethical questions we should be exploring include, “should we be setting limits on how much profit can be made from using or supplying water?" or “is corporate use of water sustainable in this place?” or “how can we better protect disadvantaged people and ecosystems from damage by corporate water use?”

What key idea do you hope staffers took away from your briefing?

Water scarcity is ravaging our economies and our ecosystems, and we need stronger rules and incentives to help us live within the limits of available, affordable water supplies.

Did you consider the briefing to be a success? Why or why not? What role has Island Press had in helping to share your expertise with key audiences?

You never know when you throw seeds into the wind whether they will take root. But the session was extremely well-attended, and the Q&A session was very lively. The staff at Island Press did a fantastic job in arranging the session and in promoting it. They made it easy for me to show up and say what I wanted to say, and to go away feeling like it was a worthwhile investment of my time.

Watch a video recording of Richter's briefing here.

Rebecca Bright, Associate Editor and Rights Manager at Island Press, shares a look into her work with international publishers.

Island Press works with publishers around the world to help our authors’ ideas reach a larger, global audience. Sales of international rights fulfill a worldwide need for resources about solutions to environmental issues like climate change, wildlife extinction, and pollution. Through this work, our books have been published in at least 25 languages, including Arabic, French, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.

Just as we do, international publishers consider many factors when deciding whether to translate and publish a book, including the topic’s uniqueness and relevance to their readers, the author’s prominence in the country, the cost of translation and publication, and the potential for sales. Some countries are more likely to publish books about certain topics. For example, many of our urban design titles have made it into Chinese bookshelves given urbanization trends and a growing interest in sustainability. 

One unique element of international rights is the opportunity to speak with publishers about the book markets in their countries, what has been working for them, and what hasn’t. Each publisher has a unique perspective on our books and on the issues—and it’s fascinating to see how we all look at things differently, and similarly.

I feel honored to work with many committed international publishers to share these ideas in many languages. Below is a sampling of recent or notable Island Press books in translation.