This post originally appeared on National Geographic's Water Currents blog and is reposted here with permission. 

We have many lessons to learn from the tragedies wrought by Hurricane Harvey, but among the most important is that a broken water cycle increases risks to our communities and economies.

Floodplains, tributaries, wetlands, lakes, ponds, rivers and groundwater form an interconnected whole that helps ensure clean, safe, reliable water supplies.  A well-functioning water cycle naturally moderates both floods and droughts, reducing societal risks from both.

The Trump administration’s proposal to rescind the Obama-era Clean Water Rule would further break the natural water cycle just at the time we need to double-down on repairing it.

The motivation for the Clean Water Rule arose from Supreme Court decisions, in particular the 2006 case of Rapanos v. United States, that sowed consideration confusion about which waters came under the jurisdiction of the federal Clean Water Act, and which did not.

Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) were spending considerable time and tax dollars determining whether or not a particular stream or wetland was protected under the Act. Just between 2008 and 2015, the agencies had to make some 100,000 case-by-case determinations, causing backlogs and delays.

The 2015 rule, also known as the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, clarified the definition and expanded protection to headwater streams and some 20 million acres (8 million hectares) of wetlands. An EPA-Corps economic analysis of the rule published in May of that year found that while the additional water protections would have negative economic impacts on certain industries and farm enterprises, the benefits to society from cleaner and more secure water supplies exceeded those costs.

In June 2017, as the Trump administration moved to rescind the rule, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt ordered agency staff to redo the economic analysis and omit the half billion dollars of benefits associated with wetland protection, according to reporting by the New York Times.

Scientists are speaking out against the repeal of the 2015 Clean Water Rule.

A letter already signed by more than 320 scientists (including me) from academia, state agencies, nonprofits, and the private sector notes that more than 1,200 peer-reviewed publications clearly establish “the vital importance” of wetlands and headwater streams “to clean water and the health of the nation’s rivers.”

In an amicus curiae (literally, friend of the court) brief to the Supreme Court in the Rapanos case, ten scientists (including me) argued that “when it comes to the connection of tributaries, streams, and wetlands to navigable waters and interstate commerce, there is no ecological ambiguity….[I]f the Clean Water Act does not protect these resources, then it does not protect navigable waters from pollution, and it cannot achieve its goals.”

But the Trump administration is once again pushing sound science aside in its attempt to roll back regulations.

Continue reading the full post here. 

If disasters related to droughts, floods, and other extreme weather seem more common globally, it’s because they are: nearly twice as many such disasters occur annually now as 25 years ago. These problems are not going away. Last year, the World Economic Forum declared water crises to be the top global risk to society over the next decade. As we look to safeguard clean drinking water, manage and adapt to more frequent droughts and floods, and balance environmental protection with economic progress, renowned water expert Sandra Postel’s Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity comes at a critical time. We spoke with Sandra about how cities and farms around the world are finding relief from an unexpected source: a healthier water cycle. Have more questions? Share them in the comments below.

You’re a renowned water expert and prolific writer on water issues around the world. What sets Replenish apart from your previous work?

This book is anchored by stories of real people and places that show how we can fix our broken water cycle, which humanity’s future depends upon. Like all of my books, Replenish is grounded in sound science and extensive research. But most of us learn from, remember, and are motivated by stories.  We face very big water challenges—which I describe in detail—and it’s easy to descend into despair. But what I show is that a future of depleted rivers, dried-up wetlands, and toxic dead zones is not inevitable. Yes, the water cycle is broken, but one river, one wetland, one city, one farm at a time, we can begin to fix it.

For centuries we’ve relied on engineering infrastructure like dams and levees to manage freshwater. Why is it important to take a more interdisciplinary approach to water management?   

Freshwater ecosystems, when healthy and functioning well, service the economy in vital ways. A healthy watershed stores and cleanses water, reducing the cost of water treatment. A healthy, flowing river supports habitat for birds and wildlife and offers recreational opportunities critical to local economies. For a couple centuries we’ve been trading nature’s services for engineering services—for example, building levees to control floods rather than letting natural floodplains do that work. But those engineering solutions are no longer working as well as they once did, and their economic costs are rising. Now that we better understand how nature functions, and how valuable its services are, we can blend ecology and engineering, along with the social and economic sciences, to produce more optimal solutions to our growing water problems, including worsening floods and droughts.

Except when referring to official titles or organizations, you do not use the phrase “water resources” in Replenish. Was this a conscious choice? What power does language have to change the way we think about our relationship to freshwater? 

For many years now I have made a conscious decision to not use the phrase “water resources.” First and foremost, water is the basis of life. If we refer to rivers and lakes as “water resources” we immediately think of them in a utilitarian way—that they’re there for us to use and take as we see fit, much the way we think of oil or coal. It’s important that we think of a river as a living, flowing part of nature that sustains life. Yes, that river can be a “resource” for the generation of energy and the provision of water supplies, but most fundamentally, it’s a river.

Economic and environmental interests are often positioned in opposition to one another. Why is this a false narrative in terms of water?

A secure supply of water is critical to everything—producing food, manufacturing goods, enjoying the outdoors, and sustaining life. In the Colorado River Basin, economic activity that generates some $26 billion a year depends on water staying in rivers rather than taking it out of them. So the key is finding the balance that, in economic terms, maximizes the value of water. For example, on the Verde River in central Arizona, conservationists have partnered with irrigators to install automated headgates on ditch systems that allow irrigators to take just the water they need, rather than diverting all of the river’s flow. There’s no loss of farm production, the community gets a healthier, flowing river during the summer recreation season, and birds and wildlife get healthier habitat. So the water in the Verde now has more value. One of the key messages of Change the Course, the national water restoration initiative I helped create, and which has restored billions of gallons of water to depleted ecosystems in North America, is that by getting smarter about how we use water, we can have healthy rivers, productive agriculture, and vibrant economies side by side. 

Replenish explores innovative water projects all over the world. Is there a particular project that stands out to you?

Wow, that’s a tough one.  A number of projects stand out—from China’s “sponge cities,” to Europe’s efforts to give the Danube and other rivers room to flood again, to the innovative irrigation methods being pioneered in Georgia’s Flint River Basin, to the restoration of the Colorado River Delta. But if I had to pick one I think it would be the creation of the Rio Grande Water Fund in New Mexico. This is a collaborative initiative to rehabilitate forested watersheds to build resilience against the impacts of wildfire on downstream drinking water supplies. It connects the whole community to its source of water—the watershed—and brings businesses, water utilities, conservationists, and local citizens together to build greater water security. It is stewardship in action.

News about water in the age of climate change is often despondent, but Replenish is hopeful. What gives you that hope? 

What gives me hope is that we can point to farmers, ranchers, cities, and businesses that are making a difference and showing that we can live more harmoniously with nature and its freshwater ecosystems. The challenge is to learn from these experiences, adapt them to new situations, and scale up these solutions. This is easier said than done; it will take changes in policies and incentives. But it’s doable. 

I should add that I am not terribly hopeful that we will prevent a good share of the rich diversity of life in freshwaters—fish, mussels, amphibians, and other species—from going extinct. The combination of dams, diversions, pollution, and climate change puts more and more species in peril. And this deeply saddens me. But as I show in Replenish, we can absolutely take action to slow the rate of extinction and save more species. Restoring and preserving flows in the Verde, San Pedro, and Gila Rivers in the American Southwest, for example, will help sustain incredibly diverse populations of birds that depend on those riparian habitats.

Was there anything you found in the course of researching and writing this book that surprised you?

I grew up in New York, on Long Island, and it surprised me to learn how much of Long Island’s coastal bays and estuaries and inland lakes and ponds are now degraded by toxic algal blooms. When I was a kid, some of these water bodies were premier areas for clams, oysters, and recreation. These algal blooms pose threats to the local fishing economy and the health of people and pets. Research suggests that if nothing is done to reduce the nitrogen pollution causing these toxic algal blooms, much of which comes from inadequate treatment of human sewage, the costs to fishing, tourism, and real estate on Long Island could total some $25 billion over the next thirty years. Algal blooms are spreading in many coastal areas around the world, and these blooms will worsen as waters warm. Technologies and measures exist to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution causing these algal blooms, but we need to implement them.

What do you hope readers take away from this book? 

I’d like readers to come away knowing that we have the capacity to write a new water story.  Yes, our water challenges are big, and Replenish provides a good overview of their nature and magnitude. But depletion and dead zones do not have to define our future.  We have barely tapped the innovative ways we can do more with less water – and then give some water back to nature.  We live on a finite planet with finite water. As the basis of life, water needs to be shared with all of life. Replenish offers up ideas for how we can all engage in water stewardship. My hope is that it inspires more people, communities, farmers, businesses, and political leaders to act.

In the words of Elizabeth Kolbert, "Nothing is more important to life than water, and no one knows water better than Sandra Postel." Postel's new book Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity is a "clear-eyed treatise" (Booklist, Starred Review) that offers a hopeful vision of a secure water future. It shows how cities and farms around the world are finding relief from an unexpected source: a healthier water cycle.

A lifelong steward of Earth's finite freswater, Postel's ideas are especially timely in light of tremendous flooding from monster storms and new megafires that threaten our watersheds. From Arizona's Verde Valley to China's "sponge cities," each story in Replenish shows the value of a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to water management that blends engineering, ecology, and economics to capitalize on the fundamental value of nature’s services.

Check out an excerpt from the book below. 

A Changing Climate Means A Changing Society. The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, Supported By The Kresge Foundation And The JPB Foundation, Is Committed To A Greener, Fairer Future.​ This Article Was Originally Published January 23, 2018 in Quartz.

Managing water — making sure there’s enough while keeping inundation at bay — is a central function of civilization. History is littered with impressive cultures that didn’t get it right, sealing their doom — from the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia to the Hohokam of the American Southwest.

It might seem that such lessons don’t apply to modern-day Americans, with our reservoirs and dams and water treatment plants. Certainly, our water-management systems are a marvel. They re-route rivers and make the desert bloom; they enable most of us to shower, flush, eat and drink while barely giving water a thought.

But, increasingly, these systems are failing to deliver. Just ask farmers in the western United States whose wells have run dry. Or fishermen whose livelihoods depend on coastal waters degraded by toxic algal blooms. Or ask refugees from recent floods in Puerto Rico or Texas.

The massive water systems that undergird our civilization involve a Faustian bargain: They allow us to control water to suit our needs, but in doing so they break the water cycle — the natural storage, cleansing and flow of water in healthy forests, rivers, soils, wetlands, and aquifers. Dams and reservoirs store water so we can use it when needed, but they also block fish migrations, destroy habitats, and trap sediment that replenishes deltas, which then leaves coastal residents vulnerable to storms and flooding. The draining of wetlands has opened up vast areas for crop production, but has left rivers and streams vulnerable to pollution that creates massive “dead zones” in coastal areas. Large-scale pumping of groundwater has led to a boom in agricultural production, but is now rapidly depleting aquifers that have stored water for thousands of years.

And our water challenges are only getting harder. The changing climate has thrown hydrologic cycles out of whack, making it difficult to ensure continuous supply and protect against floods. It’s little wonder that in 2016 the World Economic Forum declared water crises to be the top global threat to society over the next decade.

So what do we do? One lesson is key: We can’t keep doing what we’ve always done and expect a different result. More and more, water security is going to depend on working with nature, rather than against it.

Take the risks to our drinking water from wildfires and the land erosion and flooding that often follows them. Fire is essential to a healthy forest, but during much of the twentieth century, foresters snuffed fires out quickly to protect timber resources and nearby communities. As a result, many forests have become dense and overgrown, so when fires do break out they burn hotter and faster, especially in times of drought. On average, fires in the United States now consume twice as much area per year as three decades ago.

Continuing reading on Quartz...

A Changing Climate Means A Changing Society. The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, Supported By The Kresge Foundation And The JPB Foundation, Is Committed To A Greener, Fairer Future.​ This Article Was Originally Published March 9, 2018 in The Hill. 

The drought now gripping the southwestern United States feels scarily familiar. In a recent public opinion survey of western voters, 82 percent listed low river levels as their top concern when it came to water.

In five of the last seven years the snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin on March 1 has registered below the long-term average. It has been nearly two decades since Lakes Powell and Mead, the giant reservoirs on the Colorado River that supply water to some 40 million people and 5 million acres of farmland, were full. Currently, their capacities stand at 55 percent and 41 percent respectively, and with much of the Colorado River Basin now in severe or extreme drought, those lake levels will not rise significantly any time soon. 

Yet people continue to flock to the states that share the liquid lifelines of the Colorado River. They come for many reasons. But many are drawn by the great outdoors — the fishing, boating, kayaking, tubing, bird-watching and other activities made possible by rivers flowing through beautiful landscapes. The Colorado Basin boasts a $26 billion recreation economy that depends on water staying in rivers rather than being taken out of them.

Without a doubt, securing enough water for cities, farmers, businesses, and nature will require a balancing act. But there is reason for optimism: through innovation, collaboration and smarter management there is vast untapped potential to achieve that balance. 

Conservation, efficiency, recycling, reuse and storm-water capture are proven, cost-effective measures that can often negate the need for expensive and harmful dams and diversions. Especially in agriculture, incentives to invest in efficiency — from micro-irrigation to canal modernization to more precise irrigation scheduling — could free up water to restore depleted rivers. 

Continue reading on The Hill...

On the occasion of World Water Day on March 22 and author Sandra Postel winning the 2021 Stockholm Water Prize, Island Press is pleased to share an excerpt from her book Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity. The book is a “remarkable” (New York Times Book Review) story of rejuvenation that Booklist says is a “clear-eyed treatise [in which] Postel makes her case eloquently.” Get your copy at a 20% discount with code POSTEL at checkout.