Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World

The ugly truth about dams revealed

The messy legacy of last century’s dam building binge is brought to light. Governments plugged the nation’s rivers in a misguided attempt to turn them into revenue streams. Water control projects’ legacy will be of needless ecological destruction fostering a host of unnecessary injustices. What started as arguably good government policy has drifted oceans away.

Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World is a kind of speed date with the history of water control—the estimated 800,000 dams around the world and the politics and power that evolved with them. Examples from the American West reveal that the costs of building and maintaining a sprawling water storage and delivery complex in an arid world—increasingly vulnerable to the ravages of climate chaos—is well beyond the benefits. Success stories from the Patagonia region and the Blue Heart of Europe point to a possible future where rivers run free and the Earth restores itself.