Water – where it is, who owns it, how much we’ll need, and how to make sure we’ll have it – is quickly emerging as one of the most important ecological issues of the new century.

First published in 1999, Water, Marq de Villiers’s brilliant look at the condition of water resources around the world, won a Governor General’s Award and earned glowing praise from such respected figures as Maurice Strong, now of the Earth Council (“timely, authoritative, and eminently readable”).

In compelling and lucid prose, de Villiers describes the grim situations in arid regions – in the southwestern United States, southern Africa, Mexico, Egypt, Israel, India, and Asia – and makes it clear just how serious the ramifications can be. He outlines how water is being manipulated by technology, used as a political bargaining chip, or imperilled by ignorance – and what this could mean to us in the future, how it could shape the way we live.

We must act now, says de Villiers. And although our choices are conservation, technological invention, or violence, he sees hope in the fact that we still have choices.

This new edition – completely updated – of what has become a standard book on a crucial subject makes for vitally important reading.