Water has sustained the world's population for thousands of years in complex interaction with the rest of the natural environment. Yet today, nowhere on the planet seems spared from a water crisis. Viewed as unrelated events, floods, water shortages, famines and droughts may seem to fit our notion of "natural disasters"; the truth is, however, that many of them are the direct result of the way we have come to use or abuse water from day to day. Bringing the issues to life through photographs, this book is an accessible overview of the subject. While not skimping on the scientific grounding neccessary to understand the intricacies of the global water cycle, the text is written with an emphasis on the unusual and the unexpected.