Terje Tvedt is Professor of Geography at the University of Bergen and has been Professor of Political Science and of Global History at the University of Oslo, Norway. He has published extensively on water-related topics. His books include The River Nile in the Age of the British (2004), A Journey in the Future of Water (2013), and he is the Series Editor of the pioneering History of Water series. He has also made three award-winning TV-documentaries on water: A Journey in the History of Water, The Future of Water and The Nile Quest.

Nourished by fears of global warming and climate change, water has become an issue of urgent international concern. Is flooding across Europe and Asia a warning of more extreme weather conditions in times to come? Will rising sea-levels threaten some of the most densely populated regions of the Earth. And as the world population approaches 7 billion, placing increasing demands on our limited global water supply, will there be conflict over access to water? Fundamental questions about the future of humanity are being asked, and for the first time in history they have to do with the role of water and our ability to control it.
In 'A Journey in the Future of Water' leading water expert, TerjeTvedt, explores the impact of our growing water concerns. In a journey that takes him to more than twenty-five countries and across all continents he talks with water experts, politicians and local people to find out more about the ways in which different nations are seeking to respond. From Project Moses, where gigantic underwater gates will rise to prevent the inundation of Venice, to India's River Link Plan, connecting thirty-seven Himalayan rivers to rivers in the south, the author has examined some the world's largest engineering projects, travelled the great river valleys, explored the rain-soaked coasts of Scandinavia and the rain-starved deserts of the Sahara and Oman. From Las Vegas to Lourdes, from Norway to the Nile, he has taken part in water festivals and rituals in Africa and India, travelled to poor nomadic societies and some of the largest cities in the world, in order to better understand this most precious of resources and its determining role in the life of the planet. The result is both one of the most comprehensive and accessible accounts of current and future global water issues and a celebration of water itself.

Preface : A Journey in Water
PART I: THE NEW UNCERTAINTY ABOUT WATER
1. To the rivers in heaven and the centre of the world
2. A pump tour in the Netherlands

3. The icy barrens that became the world's 'hot spot'

4. The city that refuses to drown
5. The Aztecs' 'land on water' and the Mayans' subterranean water world

PART II: IN THE TIME OF THE WATER LORDS
6. South Africa's brief 'water war'
7. A water festival in Spain
8. To the Nile
9. Where the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet
10. Dams and baptisms in Ethiopia
11. On the Scandinavian rain coast
12. Dethroning the powers of the monsoon
13. Flood plain
14. To the Himalayas and the 'war in heaven'
15. Where the most sacred river is toxic
16. The dark horse at the roof of the world
17. "Cool" water - Paris and Lourdes
PART III: A NEW WATER AGE
18. Walking on water in California
19. In the Sahara - a new man-made Nile Valley
20. History's grandest engineering project in China

21. Turn Those Siberian Rivers Around Now!
22. To the subterranean 'great lake' in the ancient land of the
Indians
23. An island of the sagas enters the age of water
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index