Naturalist Craig Childs's "utterly memorable and fantastic" study of the desert's dangerous beauty is based on years of adventures in the deserts of the American West (Washington Post). Like the highest mountain peaks, deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to the most seasoned explorers. Craig Childs, who has spent years in the deserts of the American West as an adventurer, a river guide, and a field instructor in natural history, has developed a keen appreciation for these forbidding landscapes: their beauty, their wonder, and especially their paradoxes. His extraordinary treks through arid lands in search of water are an astonishing revelation of the natural world at its most extreme. "Utterly memorable and fantastic...Certainly no reader will ever see the desert in the same way again." —Suzannah Lessard, Washington Post

Practical Book

Let's just say you have to go to hell and back twice. Twenty-two-year-old Jack Wilson has always been a troubled person who has overcome a lot of hardships. Having a neglectful father, being a social pariah, and struggling with depression, he lives day by day. But Jack has a secret, a level of hatred that is unimaginably demented. When someone or rather something, finds out his secret, he is given the tools to make his darkest dreams reality. But there is a catch to his gifts. As Ocean City, Maryland, becomes the host to a series of disappearances and bizarre murders, it is up to Detective Hudson to catch the psychopath. So the question is now raised. Will the detective catch the elusive killer, or will Jack completely lose his humanity to what's hiding inside him?

The aim of this book is to document for the first time the dimensions and requirements of effective integrated groundwater management (IGM). Groundwater management is a formidable challenge, one that remains one of humanity’s foremost priorities. It has become a largely non-renewable resource that is overexploited in many parts of the world. In the 21st century, the issue moves from how to simply obtain the water we need to how we manage it sustainably for future generations, future economies, and future ecosystems. The focus then becomes one of understanding the drivers and current state of the groundwater resource, and restoring equilibrium to at-risk aquifers. Many interrelated dimensions, however, come to bear when trying to manage groundwater effectively. An integrated approach to groundwater necessarily involves many factors beyond the aquifer itself, such as surface water, water use, water quality, and ecohydrology. Moreover, the science by itself can only define the fundamental bounds of what is possible; effective IGM must also engage the wider community of stakeholders to develop and support policy and other socioeconomic tools needed to realize effective IGM. In order to demonstrate IGM, this book covers theory and principles, embracing: 1) an overview of the dimensions and requirements of groundwater management from an international perspective; 2) the scale of groundwater issues internationally and its links with other sectors, principally energy and climate change; 3) groundwater governance with regard to principles, instruments and institutions available for IGM; 4) biophysical constraints and the capacity and role of hydroecological and hydrogeological science including water quality concerns; and 5) necessary tools including models, data infrastructures, decision support systems and the management of uncertainty. Examples of effective, and failed, IGM are given. Throughout, the importance of the socioeconomic context that connects all effective IGM is emphasized. Taken as a whole, this work relates the many facets of effective IGM, from the catchment to global perspective.

Federal management of water is undergoing a change that involves a drastic reduction in the number of new water projects and an increase in emphasis on the quality of water management. This book summarizes and analyzes environmental research conducted in the lower Colorado River below the Glen Canyon Dam under the leadership of the Bureau of Reclamation. It reviews alternative dam operations to mitigate impacts in the lower Colorado riverine environment and the strengths and weaknesses of large federal agencies dealing with broad environmental issues and hydropower production. While many problems remain to be solved, the Bureau of Reclamation through the Glen Canyon area. The lessons of GCES are transferable to other locations and could be the basis for a new era in the management of western waters.