Water scarcity is on everyone’s mind. Long taken for granted, water availability has entered the realm of economics, politics, and people’s food and lifestyle choices. But as anxiety mounts many are finding new routes to water security with key implications for food access, economic resilience, biodiversity and climate change. Judith D. Schwartz shows there are alternatives to praying for rain or sandbagging like crazy, demonstrating that we can ally with the water cycle to revive the earth and restore lush, productive landscapes. Take for instance a river in rural Zimbabwe that, thanks to restorative grazing, now flows a kilometer farther than in living memory. Or a food forest of oranges, pomegranates, and native fruit-bearing plants in Tucson, grown through harvesting urban wastewater. Or a mini-oasis in West Texas nourished by dew.
Water in Plain Sight shares stories of water innovators and takes readers though the US and the world to find new water—water held in the soil, cycled through plants, captured as dew. We gain new insights on how water flows across the land, insights that can help us replenish water sources and make the best use of what we have. Ms. Schwartz will speak at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge on Thursday, October 13 at 7 pm, and will be available to sign copies of her book.
Judith D. Schwartz is a journalist whose recent work looks at ecological restoration as a way to address environmental, economic, and social challenges. She writes on this theme for numerous publications and speaks in venues around the world. Her 2013 book Cows Save the Planet was awarded a Nautilus Book Award Silver Prize for Sustainability and is among Booklist’s Top 10 Books On Sustainability. A graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and Brown University, she lives in Vermont. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.
