A Review of Rivers for Life by Kathe Winkler-Low
Rating: 3 Stars (OK)
The title of our text was somewhat misleading. Postel & Richter's Rivers For Life: Managing Water for People and Life did not address all the manamement issues facing the world's rivers today. The authors did a good job detailing the flow regimes of rivers, the importance of seasonal variation to support the biological communities that have adapted to them, and the necessity to maintain a semblance of these flow variations when engineering a river for human uses. Postel and Richter presented their own suggestions and detailed efforts by a variety of governments to address these problems. However, an important aspect of managing rivers was only marginally presented and this has to do with pollution. Flow regimes depend on clean water for success; even the most natural of flow variations is ineffective if the water is toxic to the life within it.
Acknowledging that to discuss both points comprehensively in one book would result in a Very Large Volume, this book was important to my educational process. The idea of maintaining natural flows was new to me, as were the governmental efforts (or non-efforts) to address the issues. I appreciated the hopeful message that even minor changes to river flows results in positive changes for the critters dependent on rivers.
Submitted on 1:16 PM on 3/23/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Andy Gault
Rating: 4 Stars (Good)
Rivers For Life provides for the reader a very broad reaching tour of the problems surfacing in freshwater ecosystems throughout the world that are the result of human influence upon them. The book came from what is a very large amount of knowledge and experience the authors have on this subject, and I took from it a great deal about how our ecosystems are (and are not) managed. I also learned alot about what physically comprises these ecosystems, what happens when various components disappear out of them, and how much we depend right now, and certainly will in the future, on their overall vitality and their continued/restored health.
Submitted on 2:54 PM on 3/20/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Martin Chaney
Rating: 5 Stars (Excellent)
The essence of doing good science is the ability to ask good scientific questions. It is easy to tell that “Rivers for Life” is a great science book because it asks and makes you think about key scientific questions: How much water does a river need? What is a healthy river? How can we balance the needs of a river’s ecosystem with human needs for water?
It also provides a good history of water management policy and science as well as information about water rights laws in different places throughout the world and the prospects for effecting positive changes in water management. It is at once both starkly realistic in presenting how hopelessly archaic and at odds with reality water rights in many places are and optimistic in how it is possible to effect positive changes in water management. The book is replete with illustrative examples from many places. I learned many interesting things about water management science that will useful in the coming Pacific Northwest water shortage crisis.
I learned that maintaining a healthy river is not a simple question of maintaining minimum flows, but is more a function of maintaining a natural annual (or even multi-year) flow regime and that the frequency, size and duration of floods are essential to the health of river ecosystems; as are periods of drought. I learned ways in which dams and their operation affect the health of river ecosystems beyond the obvious modification of the river flow. I learned the importance of recognizing that all water in an ecosystem is hydrologically connected and that understanding the consequences of human water use impacts requires looking for and understanding those connections.
One of the most interesting things that the book points us toward understanding, is that the impacts of human activities on river health is not a simple matter of how much water we use. How health a river is also depends critically on how and when the water is removed. All life depends on water and how healthy both rivers and human societies will be in the future will depend on how well we learn to conserve water and to do as much as we can with the resources we have. This applies equally to the water we remove for human use and the water we leave in our rivers for nature’s own use.
Submitted on 12:54 AM on 3/19/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Rebecca Chaney
Rating: 5 Stars (Excellent)
Rivers for Life offers a global perspective of river ecology; it covers humanity’s increasing knowledge of the complexities and idiosyncrasies of river systems around the world. By offering a broad overview of multiple rivers on several continents, Postel and Richter demonstrate that recognizing the similarities and differences between rivers is essential to understanding how human activity impacts them. Postel and Richter also address various types of river policy and how these policies have changed with time. With this background information it becomes apparent that in addition to consideration of individual and societal water rights, it is essential for humanity to address the right of the river to its water. Rivers for Life provides a broad ecologic perspective on the river systems of our planet.
Combining Rivers for Life with The Taming of a River offered exploration at both the global and local level for our class. I think these two readings provided good background knowledge for anyone interested in further exploring a specific river or river issue.
Submitted on 11:34 PM on 3/18/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Allen Croasdill
Rating: 4 Stars (Good)
Postel and Richter outline the recent history of watershed management worldwide in their enjoyabl book "Rivers For Life". Nationally, several decades of dam construction and river diversions has left only 2% of our river in their natural state. The ecology downstream has suffered as a consequence. The outlook is not all so bad. Many joint efforts are underway to improve what we can. The reader is left informed and hopeful.
Submitted on 5:39 PM on 3/18/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Bang Nguyen
Rating: 3 Stars (OK)
“Rivers For Life: Managing Water for People and Nature” by Sandra Postel and Brian Richter gave a very good elementary overview of the complexity of an age old problem of river management and water rights. It was a good read that kept a good pace, maintaining relevant subject matter and keeping interest with visualizations of stats in charts, graphs, illustrations, photos and maps. It was very consistent how they would analyze several water projects and loop them back throughout the book to show how interrelated the world waterway issues were. The authors were very good at presenting the cause and affects of natural impacts to rivers, but should have explored the political and social impacts more. After all, it’s what we humans and our organizations do that are the real impacts to the rivers. They mentioned the problems of the WTO to the future of the environment, and what about China, the Yangtze river, and the people impacted by the Three Gorges Dam? They brought it up and should have explained this further, instead of leaving the reader wondering. Instead of just citing the positive national and international actions, they could have also presented the negative of what groups are behind the largest problems and then social movement groups working towards balancing these inequities. The Mekong River Commission, for example, in not in harmony with itself or the world as the book sets out. It’s not just top-down government implemented problems or solutions. For example, the World Bank and it’s financial constituents, like Citigroup financial, are the cause for implementing so many great dams, water works and water rights violations around the world, and the book completely ignored the world social activist community working for water rights. At least this book is a good starter, but is incomplete, and a reader should not stop there. In conclusion, with my activist knowledge, people like me reading this book, it gets a rating of a C average or 3 stars for OK. It's a start.
Submitted on 5:05 PM on 3/18/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Mark Jenkins
Rating: 4 Stars (Good)
The book Rivers for Life, by Sandra Postel & Brian Richter, in general, was very educational. The book kind of started out talking about what is a healthy river, and talked about the ways man has disrupted the natural flow of rives and streams. This book goes into detail the way that the water table beneath the rivers are affected and touches into things that I never ever considered too ever think about. The book also tends to cover problems all over the world with the construction and decommissioning of dams the pros and cons. It also talks about the different politics involved with the many issues. This book kind of opened my mind to rivers and streams in ways I never thought about. I enjoyed reading the book.
Submitted on 7:52 AM on 3/18/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Zahra Nazari
Rating: 5 Stars (Excellent)
In this class we discussed the river issues. We specifically discussed the role of human beings throughout the history on the existence, behavior and problems of rivers. The first book that we used was Rivers for Life, written by Sandra Postal. This amazing book deeply analyzes the importance of a river for our lives. It also mentions the efforts through which many people tried to make a good use of rivers. At the same time it draws our attention to some of the damages we have done to rivers and their natural flows. In our class, we discussed these issues and compared the long-term and short-term effects, both good and bad, of our manipulating rivers all over the world.
The second book that we read was The Price of Taming a River written by Mike Sato. This book specifically concentrated on the Duwamish River. This book was a great example of what we had discussed so far in the other book, Rivers for Life. We realize the heart-breaking effects of manipulating the Duwamish River on the environment around it and the other living things in that environment
We also discussed the bottle waters and their plastic containers. Also the politics behind every action we have done throughout the history on rivers.
Both of these books and class discussions helped me acknowledge the effects of our actions on the environment. My hopes are to be able to use what I have learnt to conserve the natural resources and to participate in clean up projects.
Submitted on 6:03 PM on 3/17/05
A Review of Rivers for Life by Natalie Johnson
Rating: 3 Stars (OK)
The book River of Life focuses on water quality and the maintenance of the flow of a river. This book opened my eyes to why restoring and preserving more natural river flows are necessary for a healthy river system and how dams, politics, and other human influence have disrupted this natural flow. I believe that science, government policies and a conservation based economy can help achieve the goal for a healthy environment. I know now the importance of a healthy river on humans and communities around the world. It made me realize that rivers have many functions. It can be a place of worship, a place of creation, and a place that provides food and some income sources. I liked the fact that this book described rivers from not only a science perspective, but it put a dollar value on rivers. Some people need to see that benefits outweigh costs. I liked that the book had many graphs and tables that made it easier to understand the material mentioned if you weren’t familiar with it. I’d have to say the one thing I didn’t like about the book is that it progressed too slowly. It gave too many examples that lead to the same conclusion. For example the authors gave at least four examples of the importance of flood- agriculture and every example concluded that if the construction of dams for hydropower affected the land for agricultural use. In many instances I found myself drifting off and having to force myself to concentrate. In conclusion I gave this book three stars. The book gave good information and described it well, but it would have been easier to read if it had progressed a little faster.
Submitted on 11:04 PM on 3/13/05
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