Book - Water: A Natural History, by Alice Outwater

Paperback, 1996. Very good used condition. Cover shows minor cosmetic wear around the edges but the spine and pages are all intact and there are no rips, no stains, no markings, no dog-ears. "An environmental engineer turned ecology-writer relates the history of our waterways and an understanding of what needs to be done to save this essential natural resource. From the grasslands of the Midwest to the Everglades of Florida, through the guts of a wastewater treatment plant and back out to the waterways again, Outwater shows how nature's beaver dams, prairie dog tunnels, and buffalo wallows were replaced by human-engineered dams, canals and farms. The author makes clear that while engineering can remove pollution, only ecologically interacting systems can create healthy waterways. The heart of this book is a vision of our land and waterways as they once were, and a plan to restore them to their natural glory: a land of living streams, public lands with hundreds of millions of beaver-built wetlands, prairie dog towns that increase the amount of rainfall that percolates to the groundwater, and forests that feed their fallen trees to the sea." A wonderfully-researched book with beautiful illustrations by Billy Brauer.