Introduction to Water Resources and Environmental Issues

Karrie Lynn Pennington has been working with the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, studying the impacts of land-use on water ecosystems since 1992. She studied biology at the University of North Texas, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, and completed a Master of Science in Soils from the University of Idaho in Moscow. She taught as a visiting professor at the same university until moving to Tucson, Arizona, where she taught for 3 more years. She received her Ph.D. in Soil and Water Science, .and moved east to the Mississippi Delta, completing her postdoctoral studies with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service. Thomas V. Cech has been the Executive Director of the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District in Greeley since 1982. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Kearney State College, and a Masters in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has taught undergraduate and graduate-level water resources courses at the University of Northern Colorado and at Colorado State University. He has been honoured with the Groundwater Advocate Award from the National Groundwater Association, the National Headgate Award from the Four-States Irrigation Council, the Groundwater Foundation's Edith Stevens Groundwater Education Award, and the Universities Council on Water Resources Award for Public Service in Water Resources.

Preface; 1. Perspectives on water and environmental issues; 2. The water environment of early civilizations; 3. The hydrologic cycle; 4. Water quality; 5. Watershed basics; 6. Groundwater; 7. Lakes and ponds; 8. Rivers and streams; 9. Wetlands; 10. Dams and reservoirs; 11. Drinking water and wastewater treatment; 12. Water allocation law; 13. Roles of federal, regional, state, and local water management; 14. Water conflicts, solutions, and our future; References; Index.