Western Water A to Z: The History, Nature, and Culture of a Vanishing Resource

Description

Western Water A to Z is the first ever field guide to Western water. Reinventing this twentieth-century genre for a twenty-first-century audience, Robert R. Crifasi answers questions about rivers, water projects, the culture of water, the ecosystems water projects have created or destroyed, and the reliance of cities, farms, and industries on this critical resource. Organized as a collection of terms, the book addresses the most salient water issues and provides helpful background information regarding their origins and implications. Photographs serve a vital role in the cultural dialogue on water and stand as an equal partner to the text. Each subject is covered in about one page and is accompanied by one or two striking images from famous photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Carleton E. Watkins, Arthur Rothstein, William Henry Jackson, and Dorothea Lang as well as Crifasi's own work. Water often finds itself at the center of our cultural discourse in art, cinema, and literature, which play essential roles in shaping our understanding and experience of Western water. Crifasi also engages personalities that are nearly synonymous with Western water--John Wesley Powell, Elwood Mead, and Floyd Dominy, among others--to show how their lives intertwined with and often influenced the course of water development across the region. Travelers, adventurers, students, and anyone interested in water will find Western Water A to Z a handy and entertaining reference guide. Contents Preface Acknowledgments Part 1: Why Western Water A to Z? Introduction About the Scope of This Book The Organization of Western Water A to Z About the Photography What Is the American West? History of the West and Its Environment: A Land of Scarcity? Conquest Prior Appropriation and the Institutions of Water Management Water Development Part 2: Western Water A to Z Abbey, Edward - Avanyu Bank - Buy and Dry California State Water Project - Cubic Feet per Second Debris Flows - Dust Storms Echo Park Controversy - Evaportranspiration Fish Hatcheries - Fracking Gages and Water Measuring - Groundwater Hayden, Car - Hydropower Indigenous Water Rights - Irrigation Lahontan Cutthroat Trout - Losing Stream Mead, Elwood - Mulholland, William National Environmental Policy Act - Nonpoint Source Pollution Outlet Works - Oxbow Parker Dam - Powell, John Wesley Rafting - Russian Olive Salinity - Stream Narrowing Tamarisk - Turf Grass Union Colony - US Army Corps of Engineers Virtual Water Water Buffalo - Windmill Yellowstone Lake - Yield Zybach, Frank, andCenter Pivot Irrigation Part 3: Thinking About Western Water in the Twenty-First Century Notes Bibliography Index