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Take me to the Source – In Search of Water
by Rupert Wright

The first thing I found out when I opened this book is what it is like to die of thirst. And, as deaths go, it sounds like one of the worst. It starts with thick and foul-tasting saliva, an aching head and neck and hallucinations, and eventually goes on to include the progressive mummification of the body, tongue-swelling that prevents breathing, and, as if that weren’t enough, the person dying of thirst start weeping tears of blood.

The only reason I have chosen to relate these appalling symptoms to you in gruesome detail is that I have never thought of what it is like to die of thirst. Hunger yes. Cancer, of course. Heart attack, absolutely. But thirst, never. As Rupert Wright says, water is one of those things that most people don’t think about until they have none. And thirst is in the same category. Most of us in the west never have to deal with lack of water. Or haven’t had to up to now.

This compendium of all things water-related is a bit like a potted history of this magical, colourless, odourless element that sustains us all, yet is strangely slippery and evanescent too. At times the text is random, in parts Wright goes into too much irrelevant detail, but it is always informed, and almost consistently compelling.

In it we learn of the massive 60 mile-long New York City Tunnel 3 that has been under construction since 1970 (and isn’t due for completion until 2020) that will eventually carry water from the Catskills to the eight million inhabitants of Manhattan; we find out about the two million cubic metres of water being pumped from the Libyan desert to the coast (where most of the country’s 5.5 million inhabitants live) through a 1,200 km concrete pipeline that cost an estimated $27 billion and which will only be viable for a maximum of fifty years before the water runs out; we meet the bishop in Barra, who lives in the Brazilian state of Bahia and went on hunger strike to stop President Lula from launching a major irrigation project that would suck the local São Francisco River dry. And there are many more fascinating tidbits along the way.

Did you know, for example, that the process of water evaporating, becoming vapour and then returning to the earth as rain, snow or sleet happens roughly 37 times a year? You have probably read somewhere that water is the biggest killer of children in the world. But did you realise that this means 6,000 children a day, or two million a year, and that most of them are under five years old? Unless you work in the field, you also probably don’t know that there are two types of aquifer - those that can be replenished and those that can’t, so-called ‘fossil aquifers’ that are like oil wells, “once sucked dry they are worthless”. Most of the aquifers in India are replenishable for instance, but the massive Ogallala aquifer (which extends from western Texas to South Dakota in the US), the deep aquifer under the North China plain and the Saudi aquifer are the ‘non-replenishable’ finite kind. More interesting, however, is the fact that a replenishable aquifer is not a guarantee of water abundance, in fact once it is depleted the rate of water that can be pumped out of it automatically reduces to the rate it is recharged at.

Wright is at his most eloquent when he talks of the world of NGOs, international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (whom he has worked for as a consultant). As he so aptly writes, “The development world is certainly a strange place: one imagines that it is full of people trying to save the planet, but you quickly realise that most of them are trying to make a living.” Though he recognizes that the Bank’s employees are intelligent, well-educated and well-meaning, its charter makes its job difficult and makes it an easy target; often it ends up lending money to ‘white elephant’ projects that are a sheer waste of everyone’s resources.

As he attends the World Bank’s annual Water Week gathering, Wright marvels at how in the world of water nothing ever changes. “The same empty words; the same broken promises” he says. Having attended conferences on water for years, he uses his time between stultifying lectures to come up with his own, personal ten commandments for water projects. They are all you need to know he says, and those employed in water governance should sit up and take note.

Numbers 3, 5 and 9 are the wisest and most unexpected: “On no account give an unregulated monopoly to a large private company; Anyone who isn’t going to pay the water bill doesn’t have a say in the procedure; Animals, fish, birds, insects and plants share this planet with us. Leave them good enough quality water.” Perhaps the single most astute commandment however is: “People are happy to pay for good quality, piped water”. We know Wright is right (excuse the pun) when he travels to Delhi and talks to slum families who spend every morning killing several hours waiting by the roadside for tankers delivering heavily chlorinated water. The water is drinkable and free, but the cost these families are paying is much greater than a few rupees. They are paying for their water with the education of their offspring. Their children cannot attend school since they need to help them carry the water home.

One last thing I learned on reading this compendium is that war over water is unlikely any time soon. “The poor don’t start wars; they are too busy collecting water” writes Wright. A simple but devastating truth.

Published by Harvill Secker. £12.99