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AS ALEX PRUDHOMME and his great-aunt Julia Child were completing their collaboration on her memoir, My Life in France, they began to talk about the French obsession with bottled water, which had finally spread to America. From this spark of interest, Prudhomme began what would become an ambitious quest to understand the evolving story of freshwater. What he found was shocking as the climate warms and world population grows, demand for water has surged, but supplies of freshwater are static or dropping, and new threats to water quality appear every day. The Ripple Effect is Prudhommes vivid and engaging inquiry into the fate of freshwater in the twenty-first century. The questions he sought to answer were urgent Will there be enough water to satisfy demand What are the threats to its quality What is the state of our water infrastructureboth the pipes that bring us freshwater and the levees that keep it out How secure is our water supply from natural disasters and terrorist attacks Can we create new sources for our water supply through scientific innovation Is water a right like air or a commodity like oiland who should control the tap Will the wars of the twenty-first century be fought over water Like Daniel Yergins classic The Prize The Epic Quest for Oil, Money Power, Prudhommes The Ripple Effect is a masterwork of investigation and dramatic narrative.