A guide to the world’s most critical resource

Today, more than a billion people are without safe drinking water. By 2050, almost half the world's population will face severe water shortages. Mother Earth is running out of fresh water at such a rate that soon it will be the most valuable commodity on earth. “If the wars of the twentieth century were fought over oil, the wars of this century will be fought over water,” World Bank experts predicted years ago. In a striking new approach to cartography, Clarke and King provide information on the entire spectrum of problems concerning this scarce resource: water scarcity and dependency, contamination and disease, floods and droughts et cetera. The combination of maps and written information make the gist of every aspect easy to comprehend. (orb)