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Water: A Natural History
An environmental engineer turned ecology writer relates the history of our waterways and her own growing understanding of what needs to be done to save this essential natural resource.
A Natural History takes us back to the diaries of the first Western explorers; it moves from the reservoir to the modern toilet, from the grasslands of the Midwest to the Everglades of Florida, through the guts of a wastewater treatment plant and out to the waterways again. It shows how human-engineered dams, canals and farms replaced nature's beaver dams, prairie dog tunnels, and buffalo wallows. Step by step, Outwater makes clear what should have always been while engineering can de-pollute water, only ecologically interacting systems can create healthy waterways.
Important reading for students of environmental studies, the heart of this history is a vision of our land and waterways as they once were, and a plan that can restore them to their former a land of living streams, public lands with hundreds of millions of beaver-built wetlands, prairie dog towns that increase the amount of rainfall that percolates to the groundwater, and forests that feed their fallen trees to the sea.
A Natural History takes us back to the diaries of the first Western explorers; it moves from the reservoir to the modern toilet, from the grasslands of the Midwest to the Everglades of Florida, through the guts of a wastewater treatment plant and out to the waterways again. It shows how human-engineered dams, canals and farms replaced nature's beaver dams, prairie dog tunnels, and buffalo wallows. Step by step, Outwater makes clear what should have always been while engineering can de-pollute water, only ecologically interacting systems can create healthy waterways.
Important reading for students of environmental studies, the heart of this history is a vision of our land and waterways as they once were, and a plan that can restore them to their former a land of living streams, public lands with hundreds of millions of beaver-built wetlands, prairie dog towns that increase the amount of rainfall that percolates to the groundwater, and forests that feed their fallen trees to the sea.
224 pages, Paperback
First published September 19, 1996
33 people are currently reading
451 people want to read
About the author
Alice Outwater
6 books6 followersAlice Outwater grew up on Lake Champlain, in Vermont. She studied engineering at the University of Vermont and went to grad school at MIT to learn about water.
Outwater managed sludge for the Boston Harbor Clean-Up, and wrote The Reuse of Sludge and Minor Wastewater Residuals. She wrote the much translated Cartoon Guide to the Environment with Larry Gonick. Water: A Natural History was a Library Journal Science Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/New England award. She consults in water quality, and has lived on a farm since 1991, in Vermont, Hawaii and finally Colorado.
Outwater managed sludge for the Boston Harbor Clean-Up, and wrote The Reuse of Sludge and Minor Wastewater Residuals. She wrote the much translated Cartoon Guide to the Environment with Larry Gonick. Water: A Natural History was a Library Journal Science Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/New England award. She consults in water quality, and has lived on a farm since 1991, in Vermont, Hawaii and finally Colorado.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
August 5, 2016
Exceptionally good (accessible, succinct) aquatic and wildlife ecology writing; abhorrently bad writing about Native communities and impacts of settler colonialism. Given when she wrote this, and authors she cites (Cronon and Worster, for example), it's hard to chalk up her writing about Native peoples to simple ignorance. She describes Native communities as if the hundreds of thousands of tribes across North America were and are completely homogenous; she replicates the "disappearing Indian" trope; doctrines of terra nullius and Manifest Destiny make their appearance; etc. Her strengths certainly lie in the realm of ecology; I would give this book more than five stars for its excellent and readable ecological analyses. I would give it negative stars for the problematic framing & selective presentation of human histories (specifically Native/settler interactions). I settled on 4 stars and a harsh review; hope this is helpful for future readers!
August 19, 2021
Alice Outwater penning a book about water is too perfect. An ecologist by trade, Outwater’s passion for water systems developed when she worked as a lead scientist on the historic Boston Harbor Clean-Up in the late 1980s.
Structurally and stylistically, this is as good as any environmental history out there. It lends itself to the proud tradition of those like Bill Cronon’s Changes in the Land (who I was lucky enough to take an undergrad class with at the University of Wisconsin) and Mark Cioc’s The Rhine.
From tragic overhunting of beavers and prairie dogs to industrial city sewage systems, Outwater expertly takes us through major human-engineered changes to America’s water systems and explains why the stakes of these changes are so high. “The country’s waterways have been transformed by omission,” she writes. “Without beavers, water makes its way too quickly to the sea; without prairie dogs, water runs over the surface instead of sinking into the aquifer; without bison, there are no groundwater-recharge ponds in the grasslands and the riparian zone is trampled…” and on and on and on.
Another reviewer has done well to note glaring issues in Outwater’s framing of Native American populations, glossing over nuance and playing into problematic stereotypes. Be sure to read this otherwise excellent book with a critical eye toward this framing!
Structurally and stylistically, this is as good as any environmental history out there. It lends itself to the proud tradition of those like Bill Cronon’s Changes in the Land (who I was lucky enough to take an undergrad class with at the University of Wisconsin) and Mark Cioc’s The Rhine.
From tragic overhunting of beavers and prairie dogs to industrial city sewage systems, Outwater expertly takes us through major human-engineered changes to America’s water systems and explains why the stakes of these changes are so high. “The country’s waterways have been transformed by omission,” she writes. “Without beavers, water makes its way too quickly to the sea; without prairie dogs, water runs over the surface instead of sinking into the aquifer; without bison, there are no groundwater-recharge ponds in the grasslands and the riparian zone is trampled…” and on and on and on.
Another reviewer has done well to note glaring issues in Outwater’s framing of Native American populations, glossing over nuance and playing into problematic stereotypes. Be sure to read this otherwise excellent book with a critical eye toward this framing!
February 6, 2008
This is what I'd call a wow book. One that I kept bugging my sweet spouse with, having to stop and read aloud passages of world realigning import every few pages or so.
It starts of so mundanely, a distant pastoral image that comes into startling clarity and making it seem as if you've never really seen reality until the author showed it to you. Sort of like the Matrix, only it's ecological history. Not what it sounds like when you say that.
Cross Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States with 1491, Silent Spring, and the little pill that makes you see everything clearly.....
Strange elements to inspire passions-- beavers, old growth forests, grasslands, prairie dogs, buffalo, salmon.....
One thing about the end of the book that I like is that her assessment of our current environmental situation is not a sweeping one, not one with cure alls or doomsday scenarios, but one in which she sees hope for reclaiming some of what has been lost.
It starts of so mundanely, a distant pastoral image that comes into startling clarity and making it seem as if you've never really seen reality until the author showed it to you. Sort of like the Matrix, only it's ecological history. Not what it sounds like when you say that.
Cross Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States with 1491, Silent Spring, and the little pill that makes you see everything clearly.....
Strange elements to inspire passions-- beavers, old growth forests, grasslands, prairie dogs, buffalo, salmon.....
One thing about the end of the book that I like is that her assessment of our current environmental situation is not a sweeping one, not one with cure alls or doomsday scenarios, but one in which she sees hope for reclaiming some of what has been lost.
May 21, 2008
A very informative history, if not strictly academic, of profound changes to watersheds in the U.S., and an interesting narrative tour of a modern urban water treatment facility and typical urban water cycle. These are relatively recent developments, which have gone a long way to reduce disease in urban environment. The author is concerned however, about the longer term effects of excessive harvesting of natural resources (like beaver, timber, etc.) fast-tracking run-off downstream, our heavy volume of waste-water, development, agriculture, dams...on ecosystems. This book tends like many of its sort to indulge in a bit (just a little) of eco-fear-mongering emotionalism, instead of developing a deeper objective study to further support and flesh out the main idea, but that is perhaps beyond the scope of a small informal book of this sort.
March 14, 2011
Does for water what Omnivore's Dilemma did for food.
April 28, 2012
A must read for anyone remotely interested in water in our lives now and in the past, and where it should b in our future.
August 3, 2025
Is there an update or 2nd edition of this book? It is densely packed with stories of the ways humans have manipulated nature, either intentionally or unintentionally, with negative effect. It would be interesting to learn how things have progressed since 1996. E.g. the big reservoir in the southern U.S. is given about 30 years to produce enough water, and we are approaching that year.
Over and over while reading this book, I wondered why my professors didn't assign this as a class text for discussion or pure facts to memorize, since I studied biology and ecology from 1992-2001! Some of the concepts herein were learned on the job working for a state environmental agency or by reading other articles and books, but it would have been great to begin with this as a foundation, and as an important and wide-ranging snapshot of where the nation stood at that time. It would have helped me to refine for myself which issues had next steps to work on, and which issues still had hope for being solved. It would have also taught me earlier that meddling in the environment and species often has "bad" consequences. This was one of the most interesting, well-written, impactful books I have read.
Over and over while reading this book, I wondered why my professors didn't assign this as a class text for discussion or pure facts to memorize, since I studied biology and ecology from 1992-2001! Some of the concepts herein were learned on the job working for a state environmental agency or by reading other articles and books, but it would have been great to begin with this as a foundation, and as an important and wide-ranging snapshot of where the nation stood at that time. It would have helped me to refine for myself which issues had next steps to work on, and which issues still had hope for being solved. It would have also taught me earlier that meddling in the environment and species often has "bad" consequences. This was one of the most interesting, well-written, impactful books I have read.
December 3, 2022
Good read. Really puts North American natural history in perspective.
November 29, 2021
A really exceptional book describing all we've taken away from the land and its ecological systems over the past 400 years. (4 stars because the book's first chapter tells a problematic framing of Native peoples and settler colonialism.)
June 11, 2011
Although this short book is necessarily an overview, it's impressive how much detailed information the author manages to cover in a mere 186 pages. Most fascinating are the two opening chapters in which Outwater reviews the environmental engineering of the American beaver, how its "structural improvements" managed the waterways of the continent, and, in so doing, created a rich ecosystem that supported a great diversity of species. In a mere 200 years after the arrival of fur-trading Europeans, the beaver faced extinction & the efficient hydrologic system that depended upon them for its construction & maintenance had been undermined. Outwater moves on to examine the impact (not good!) of human disruption, if not outright elimination, of other keystone species, such as old growth forests, bison, prairie dogs & American alligators. Consequences: loss, in places, of up to 95% of wetlands, depletion of non-renewable groundwater resources, soil erosion, air and water pollution, species extinction and endangerment, all contributing to loss of ecological diversity. From her perspective in 1996, Outwater sees reasons for hope due to recent efforts to clean up the air and water, protect endangered species and return some features of the ecosystem to more primeval conditions. She proposes the reestablishment of the beaver, prairie dog & bison on public lands managed by the BLM, Forest Service, National Parks, etc. It bears keeping in mind, however, that Outwater was writing in the mid nineties, prior to the Bush-Cheney administration's assault on so many environmental programs and protections. It is hard to imagine that in the intervening 15 years we can have moved closer to implementing the programs the author recommends. A second edition of this book could provide a welcome update.
August 12, 2018
Do read this informative book - after you read "An Peoples' History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, and maybe "1491" by Charles Mann, to help you spot the author's anti-Native bias and fill in her simplified, Eurocentric history. The book does make crystal clear the importance of the amazing beavers (who once numbered 200 million in North America), brave buffalo, scary alligators and perky prairie dogs in creating and preserving clean water. Like most ecology books, though, this one fails to find the root source of environmental destruction - capitalism itself. As important as private and nonprofit efforts to restore prairie dogs, etc, are, they are a bit like buying an umbrella to fend off global warming. Changing the system (and salvaging clean water) will only come about with a massive world movement. The book, however, is well worth the read.
May 22, 2014
I'm reading this for the third time in about ten years. It's that good. Outwater makes the issue of water quality come alive and she explains concisely and clearly how the U.S. has arrived at its current state (i.e., our water is better than it was a few decades ago, but it's nowhere near as good or as plentiful as it was a couple of centuries ago). A fascinating blend of history and science.
June 15, 2010
I'm reading this with my Comp 101 class. It's a phenomenal book. Chock full of information that connects so many dots about our history in America and the journey of changing how the land's water flows. On top of that, it's beautifully written.
May 8, 2013
Fascinating, disturbing, and hopeful all at the same time.
December 20, 2025
Book Review:
Water: A Natural History, by Alice Outwater
Basic Books, 1996
There’s a remarkable little book, less than 200 pages long, which provides some real insight into the relationship between humankind and nature. This book, entitled Water, A Natural History, is divided into two major sets of essays, the first on the impact of settlers on the natural water systems of North America from the 17th century on, the second on the impact of engineered waterways throughout the 20th century.
It is the first section, “Dismantling The Natural System” which distinguishes this book from the mass of critical writing about human behavior and the natural environment. In this group of six essays, Outwater takes us on a remarkable exploration of the role of beaver, ground hogs, and buffalo on the hydrogeology of the continent. Her writing simply captures the imagination as she draws connections between the behavior of these creatures, such as dam building, burrowing, and digging, and the entire pattern of water movement through the land.
Her writing brings us back to a vivid understanding of what our country was like before it was settled by Europeans, and specifically how close the relationship is between animal behavior and the very shape of ecological systems.
Take the beaver, for example. We all know that these 40-inch long creatures have an impact on waterways, and perhaps it would not surprise most people to know that a family of beavers can build a 35-foot long dam in a week. But have you thought of the collective impact of a population of 200 million beavers, the approximate number which lived here in the 1500’s?
Through their dam building behavior, beavers essentially “construct” wetlands, which expand the area of transition zone between water and land and provide fertile habitat and groundwater recharge. Each beaver impacted something like an acre of land in this way, which, multiplied by the number of beavers, amounts to an area of more than 300,000 square miles of wetlands… a tenth of the entire land area of the United States. The beaver population was decimated, down to today’s’ population of some 7 million, by the year 1700. And for what? Hats. The beaver hat was so fashionable across Europe that beaver skins bankrolled most of the early colonists, and they were the principal export from the port of New York until the trade ended abruptly when the animals could no longer be found easily.
Outwater tells a similar story about the other key species which impacted water patterns. It turns out the prairie dog towns, which used to range across thousands of square miles, with about fifty holes per acre, were inhabited by literally billions of individuals. Because it was assumed that they competed with sheep and cattle for forage, and because of the myth that horses broke their legs in prairie dog holes, they were systematically poisoned. In 1920 alone, Outwater reports, 132,000 men spread 32 million acres with poisoned grain. Today prairie dog town cover no more than 2 million acres, and the hundreds of millions of burrows which had allowed rain to penetrate deep below the surface layer and recharge the major aquifers are gone.
In its own understated way, Water is one of the most profoundly moving books about the human relationship with natural ecosystems I’ve ever come across. This is because it describes so convincingly a set of complex relationships that can never be recovered. I had simply never imagined the way in which millions of buffalo, seeking to protect themselves from mosquito bites, could impact entire aquifers by digging shallow pits called wallows which acted like recharge ponds.
She describes a scene of beautiful interdependence; not just between animals, but between the adaptive behavior of key species and the way that water moved through and across the land. We know at some instinctive level that it is the intersection and exchange between the land and the water that nourishes life best of all, and so we love the riverbank and the shore. But the profound influence of the creatures Outwater describes is unknown to us modern folk, and sadly so it shall remain.
Although Water: A Natural History has some weaknesses, most notably in the final chapter where the author brings her own career as a wastewater engineer into focus in a somewhat disjointed fashion, this is a “must read” for anyone who knows that nature and natural ecosystems are worth preserving. It makes connections for us reveal valuable clues about many of the other ties between biodiversity and a healthy natural environment. By allowing us to begin to grasp the enormity of the changes we have collectively imposed on the landscape, she offers inspiration and ammunition to those of us striving to protect and repair what we have left.
Water: A Natural History, by Alice Outwater
Basic Books, 1996
There’s a remarkable little book, less than 200 pages long, which provides some real insight into the relationship between humankind and nature. This book, entitled Water, A Natural History, is divided into two major sets of essays, the first on the impact of settlers on the natural water systems of North America from the 17th century on, the second on the impact of engineered waterways throughout the 20th century.
It is the first section, “Dismantling The Natural System” which distinguishes this book from the mass of critical writing about human behavior and the natural environment. In this group of six essays, Outwater takes us on a remarkable exploration of the role of beaver, ground hogs, and buffalo on the hydrogeology of the continent. Her writing simply captures the imagination as she draws connections between the behavior of these creatures, such as dam building, burrowing, and digging, and the entire pattern of water movement through the land.
Her writing brings us back to a vivid understanding of what our country was like before it was settled by Europeans, and specifically how close the relationship is between animal behavior and the very shape of ecological systems.
Take the beaver, for example. We all know that these 40-inch long creatures have an impact on waterways, and perhaps it would not surprise most people to know that a family of beavers can build a 35-foot long dam in a week. But have you thought of the collective impact of a population of 200 million beavers, the approximate number which lived here in the 1500’s?
Through their dam building behavior, beavers essentially “construct” wetlands, which expand the area of transition zone between water and land and provide fertile habitat and groundwater recharge. Each beaver impacted something like an acre of land in this way, which, multiplied by the number of beavers, amounts to an area of more than 300,000 square miles of wetlands… a tenth of the entire land area of the United States. The beaver population was decimated, down to today’s’ population of some 7 million, by the year 1700. And for what? Hats. The beaver hat was so fashionable across Europe that beaver skins bankrolled most of the early colonists, and they were the principal export from the port of New York until the trade ended abruptly when the animals could no longer be found easily.
Outwater tells a similar story about the other key species which impacted water patterns. It turns out the prairie dog towns, which used to range across thousands of square miles, with about fifty holes per acre, were inhabited by literally billions of individuals. Because it was assumed that they competed with sheep and cattle for forage, and because of the myth that horses broke their legs in prairie dog holes, they were systematically poisoned. In 1920 alone, Outwater reports, 132,000 men spread 32 million acres with poisoned grain. Today prairie dog town cover no more than 2 million acres, and the hundreds of millions of burrows which had allowed rain to penetrate deep below the surface layer and recharge the major aquifers are gone.
In its own understated way, Water is one of the most profoundly moving books about the human relationship with natural ecosystems I’ve ever come across. This is because it describes so convincingly a set of complex relationships that can never be recovered. I had simply never imagined the way in which millions of buffalo, seeking to protect themselves from mosquito bites, could impact entire aquifers by digging shallow pits called wallows which acted like recharge ponds.
She describes a scene of beautiful interdependence; not just between animals, but between the adaptive behavior of key species and the way that water moved through and across the land. We know at some instinctive level that it is the intersection and exchange between the land and the water that nourishes life best of all, and so we love the riverbank and the shore. But the profound influence of the creatures Outwater describes is unknown to us modern folk, and sadly so it shall remain.
Although Water: A Natural History has some weaknesses, most notably in the final chapter where the author brings her own career as a wastewater engineer into focus in a somewhat disjointed fashion, this is a “must read” for anyone who knows that nature and natural ecosystems are worth preserving. It makes connections for us reveal valuable clues about many of the other ties between biodiversity and a healthy natural environment. By allowing us to begin to grasp the enormity of the changes we have collectively imposed on the landscape, she offers inspiration and ammunition to those of us striving to protect and repair what we have left.
June 30, 2020
In this collection of what seems to be independent essays, the author describes the history and evolution of water in North America. She begins with the fur trade and nature’s engineers, the beaver. In subsequent chapters, she writes about prairie dogs, buffaloes, alligators, freshwater shellfish, as well as the forests and grasslands. She explores the path of rainfall and how its been altered as we have altered the environment. She discusses the role of the toilet and sewer systems. Toward the end of the book (175ff), Outwater brings together all these seemingly diverse ideas as she discusses our attempts to “save the environment.” She points out the fallacy in many environmental efforts. We attempt to preserve an “endangered species… as if they were items in a catalog… [while] missing the larger ecological picture.” (181). At first, I was wondering where Outwater was going with these essays as they seemed to be independent of one another, but by the end of the book, I understood her point. She encourages us to see how the natural work really does work together.
Water: A Natural History is really a history of human impact upon the waters of North America (mainly the United States). Outwater recalls how we have misused our water and are now changing our views and our behavior as we strive to clean up our rivers and streams. She appears optimistic even while acknowledging there is more to be done. And example of her optimism is from seeing how the non-native zebra mussel, which was introduced by an ocean-going ship into the Great Lakes, is taking over the role of native mussels that have been wiped out by human activity. Having lived in the Great Lakes region for a decade, I know her view isn’t shared by many who see the zebra mussel as problematic.
Much of the concluding chapters of this book comes from Outwater’s work as an environmental engineer in the Boston Harbor cleanup project. Her writing is clear and concise and caused me to ponder much about water and how we depend on it. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in one of things necessary for life—water. And I also find her name, “Outwater” to be appropriate for someone who writes on the topic! This is my second book by Outwater. I had previously reviewed her book, Wild at Heart which also covers many of these same themes.
Water: A Natural History is really a history of human impact upon the waters of North America (mainly the United States). Outwater recalls how we have misused our water and are now changing our views and our behavior as we strive to clean up our rivers and streams. She appears optimistic even while acknowledging there is more to be done. And example of her optimism is from seeing how the non-native zebra mussel, which was introduced by an ocean-going ship into the Great Lakes, is taking over the role of native mussels that have been wiped out by human activity. Having lived in the Great Lakes region for a decade, I know her view isn’t shared by many who see the zebra mussel as problematic.
Much of the concluding chapters of this book comes from Outwater’s work as an environmental engineer in the Boston Harbor cleanup project. Her writing is clear and concise and caused me to ponder much about water and how we depend on it. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in one of things necessary for life—water. And I also find her name, “Outwater” to be appropriate for someone who writes on the topic! This is my second book by Outwater. I had previously reviewed her book, Wild at Heart which also covers many of these same themes.
June 18, 2019
"Once, a tenth of the total land area (in the continental U.S.) was beaver-built wetland; the beaver's decline caused the first major shift in the nation's water cycle. The depressions buffalo made on the ground and the holes dug by prairie dogs collected rain and runoff that seeped down to the water table; our waterways have been transformed by the loss of these keystone species. Outwater looks at grasslands and forests, artificial waterways, agriculture, aqueducts and toilet bowls, sewers and sludge (she gives a guided tour of a waste-treatment plant). She makes a strong case for restoring natural systems to public lands‘repopulating beaver, bison and prairie dogs. This book is a valuable addition to environmental literature and to our understanding of water."
October 7, 2019
This book was a real eye opener , and also really pleasant to read. It’s very informative history, a lot of interesting details and a lot of interesting facts. It has profound changes to watersheds in the US, and an interesting narrative tour of a modern urban water treatment facility and typical urban water cycle, these are relatively recent developments. Author “Outwater” has a good amazing humor with good details to share. I would give this book 4 starts for it’s good and excellent readable ecological analysis. Although this short book is necessarily an overview , it’s impressive how much detailed information and all the different texts and codes the author managed to cover in a mere of 187 pages. I would recommend this book for all middle school to college students only.
June 25, 2022
One of the best I've ever read. Should be required reading for anyone even thinking about thinking about anything environmental, or just interested in that stuff that, you know, makes up most our bodyweight.
Should also be required reading for... everybody.
It's a 900 page book crammed brilliantly into 200 pages.
You know books where you're thinking, "OK, for what it had to say, it could have done so in a fourth the space"?
This is one with no filler or fluff. It's just a brilliant, very well-written book that'll somehow leave you with ten times the information of a far longer book.
Contains history, biology... just everything.
Should also be required reading for... everybody.
It's a 900 page book crammed brilliantly into 200 pages.
You know books where you're thinking, "OK, for what it had to say, it could have done so in a fourth the space"?
This is one with no filler or fluff. It's just a brilliant, very well-written book that'll somehow leave you with ten times the information of a far longer book.
Contains history, biology... just everything.
July 31, 2019
Alice Outwater's own words speak the best, paraphrased: There is a will to restore our land. We have forgotten much of what is missing. The balance of nature existed before we turned things upside down. Buffalo, beavers, prairie dogs, and fresh water mussels created an ecological systems that cleaned the water and enriched the land. Today, 1/3 of our waterways remain polluted and the natural water cycle has yet to be restored. It is time to resort the balance to our land and allow nature's engineers to do their work!
September 26, 2022
This is the single best book about how water and animals and humans interact in the environment that I have ever read. I give it to anyone I meet who is interested in the topic (which of course should be everyone!)
July 3, 2025
decent book. nice bits on the importance of the interconnectedness of so much of nature, and its depressing how much we’ve destroyed. not what i expected from the title though, and just didn’t hit too much for me.
August 1, 2025
While maybe slightly outdated at this point, this book is a great primer for new conservationists, and gives a fantastic snapshot of American conservation history and environmentalism through the lens of water. A quick read and well worth it.
September 7, 2018
Too many errors in the section about fish for me to take the rest of this book seriously.
October 30, 2019
The entire first chapter (beavers) was the best! Poor water quality starting with cold rich people in their chilly mansions.
May 19, 2020
Clear overview of how things have been destroyed and altered in ecosystems. Easy read.
August 13, 2021
A very important book for anyone who wants to understand the importance of water in our world. Fascinating.
January 27, 2022
Great little natural history, very informative and full of things I did not realize.
May 2, 2024
Great book. All science type teachers should have to read this
October 28, 2025
loved it
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews