water wars

Last weekend I read Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly, and the Politics of Thirst (2002, ISBN 1-57322-995-4) by Diane Raines Ward. I thought she did a great job of touching on the major water issues in many parts of the world, including India, Australia, the Euphrates (Turkey-Syria-Iraq), Holland, and the American Southwest.

Two things were of particular interest to me. She devoted a lengthy section to Australia's Murray-Darling Commission and its work providing both water and hydro power on the Snowy River basin. This was a situation where the powers-that-be approached the problems from a whole watershed perspective.

The other thing she talked about was the potential for low-head micro-hydro power, i.e. putting smallish hydrelectric generators on smaller stream and dams as an alternative to massive damming projects. She talked about the importance of evaluating the specific conditions on a case by case basis to determine the most effective overall approach--something that makes a whole lot of sense to me.