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The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict
Supplying vital water to more than 30 million Americans living in the arid West, the Colorado River is one of the most diverted, dammed, and heavily litigated rivers in the world. In full-color, photo essay format, The Colorado Flowing Through Conflict, follows the river's epic 1,450-mile journey from its headwaters high in the Colorado Rockies to its dried-up delta touching the Sea of Cortez. With striking photography and authoritative prose, Peter McBride and Jonathan Waterman illuminate the historical, geographical, and environmental significance of this life-giving river.
155 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 6, 2022
Jonathan Waterman grew up on the Western slope of Colorado, and curious about the role of water in his family's ranch land, he set out to photograph and learn about the entire path of the Colorado River, from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park to the dried-up delta where it no longer reaches the sea in Mexico. This book is a quick read, largely of photographs along the river's route, but it gives an appreciation of the entire river system and how many people are dependent upon it. The most striking thing about reading this book is how little has changed since Waterman published it in 2010, as the states now face the deadline to update their agreement over how this water should be used, and how they squandered 12 years in the meantime of the opportunity to come to a consensus before drastic cuts became necessary.
February 7, 2012
This could be a stunning coffee table book, but it’s not. Unlike a coffee table book, the accompanying text was interesting enough that I actually read it, and the text compelled me to truly study the photographs and digest them in a new way.
What this is, is a beautifully and passionately written book about the plight of the Colorado River. The photographer and the author traveled the entire length of the Colorado River’s 1450 miles by a mixture of air, boat, and foot to truly understand and digest the impact of the river on the many surrounding environments it travels through. It’s an incredibly well-researched and detailed work; in many places the photographer McBride recreated historical photos and juxtaposed the originals with photos of today’s view, effectively showing the enormous change the river has gone through.
The book is broken into three parts: The Mountains (Colorado headwaters to Cataract Canyon, Utah), Big Reservoirs, Grand Canyon (Lake Powell to Hoover Dam), and To the Delta (Black Canyon to Gulf of California, Mexico). Each part contains an accompanying map and introductory text, followed by photographs of the area and informative captions. Most poignant for me was the photograph of an abandoned fishing boat in the now dried-up delta. The river stopped running to the sea in the late 90s, and now dries up more than 12 miles in from tide water.
I took off one star because while the book was both beautiful and informative and clearly demonstrated to me that the Colorado River is in crisis, I don’t really know what I can do about it as an individual. So I’m left feeling bad, slightly more conscious of water usage, but otherwise unchanged by the book. I would have appreciated some “get involved” suggestions, or at least a little exposition on how the author and photographer were changed by this journey, and what they’re doing differently in their lives as a result. There was a note from New Belgium at the end directing readers to savethecolorado.org which was better than nothing, but I still would have liked a little more at the end of the book itself.
What this is, is a beautifully and passionately written book about the plight of the Colorado River. The photographer and the author traveled the entire length of the Colorado River’s 1450 miles by a mixture of air, boat, and foot to truly understand and digest the impact of the river on the many surrounding environments it travels through. It’s an incredibly well-researched and detailed work; in many places the photographer McBride recreated historical photos and juxtaposed the originals with photos of today’s view, effectively showing the enormous change the river has gone through.
The book is broken into three parts: The Mountains (Colorado headwaters to Cataract Canyon, Utah), Big Reservoirs, Grand Canyon (Lake Powell to Hoover Dam), and To the Delta (Black Canyon to Gulf of California, Mexico). Each part contains an accompanying map and introductory text, followed by photographs of the area and informative captions. Most poignant for me was the photograph of an abandoned fishing boat in the now dried-up delta. The river stopped running to the sea in the late 90s, and now dries up more than 12 miles in from tide water.
I took off one star because while the book was both beautiful and informative and clearly demonstrated to me that the Colorado River is in crisis, I don’t really know what I can do about it as an individual. So I’m left feeling bad, slightly more conscious of water usage, but otherwise unchanged by the book. I would have appreciated some “get involved” suggestions, or at least a little exposition on how the author and photographer were changed by this journey, and what they’re doing differently in their lives as a result. There was a note from New Belgium at the end directing readers to savethecolorado.org which was better than nothing, but I still would have liked a little more at the end of the book itself.
June 14, 2014
I had read the book by Jon Waterman quite some time ago, but this pictorial by the photographer that accompanied him was a very nice addition.
July 24, 2012
a must-read (lots of pics to view)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews