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  1. Dartmouth Libraries
  2. Research Guides
  3. Dartmouth Libraries Guides
  4. Geography
  5. Water

Geography

Start your research in geography with the best available resources curated by the subject librarian.
  • The Basics
  • Human Geography
  • Physical Geography
  • Finding books
  • Finding scholarly journal articles
  • AAG
  • International development
  • Globalization
  • Food Security
  • Water
  • Islands
  • Research
  • Statistics/Data for Geography
  • Fieldwork
  • Prague FSP
  • News & Current events
  • Maps & Atlases
  • ArcGIS This link opens in a new window
  • Polar Studies
  • Managing citations
  • Geography course guides
  • Scholarly communication This link opens in a new window
  • Feedback

Subject Librarian

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Lucinda M. Hall
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies, Geography, Polar Studies

Water in the United States

  • Environmental Protection Agency logo
    EPA Office of Water
    • Link
    When the water in our rivers, lakes, and oceans becomes polluted; it can endanger wildlife, make our drinking water unsafe, and threaten the waters where we swim and fish. EPA research supports efforts under the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.
  • Environmental Protection Agency logo
    How's My Watershed
    • Link
    How's My Waterway was designed to provide the general public with information about the condition of their local waters based on data that states, federal, tribal, local agencies and others have provided to EPA.
  • USGS Water Science School
    • Link
    From the U.S. Geological Survey, information and other resources about water.
  • USGS logo
    Water resources mission area
    • Link
    Water information is fundamental to national and local economic well-being, protection of life and property, and effective management of the Nation’s water resources. The USGS works with partners to monitor, assess, conduct targeted research, and deliver information on a wide range of water resources and conditions including streamflow, groundwater, water quality, and water use and availability.

Internet resources

  • Blue Gold: The Global Water Crisis ...
    • Link
    This report reveals that emerging water policies of many governments will likely worsen the imminent global water crisis. As the World Bank notes, "The wars of the next century will be about water." The report addresses: Who owns water? Should anyone? Should it be privatized? ...
  • IRC International Water & Sanitation Centre
    • Link
    Since its foundation in 1968, the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre has facilitated the sharing, promotion and use of knowledge so that governments, professionals and organisations can better support poor men, women and children in developing countries to obtain water and sanitation services they will use and maintain.
  • United Nations logo
    UN World Water Development Reports
    • Link
    The United Nations World Water Development Report (WWDR) is UN-Water’s flagship report on water and sanitation issues, focusing on a different theme each year. ...
  • Water.org logo
    Water.org
    • Link
    Their goals are to draw attention to the world’s number one health problem, unsafe and inadequate water supplies, and to raise funds to help fight this immense problem – one community at a time.
  • United Nations logo
    Water for Life, 2005 - 2015
    • Link
    The United Nations, through its inter-agency coordination mechanism, UN-Water, is responsible for coordinating the 'Water for Life' Decade.
  • Water Resources - Topic Guide
    • Link
    A guide from the Center for Research Libraries CRL) which highlights resources in their collections about Water.
  • United Nations logo
    World Water Day
    The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations General Assembly designated 22 March of each year as the World Day for Water by adopting a resolution.

Introduction

Water is essential for life. No living being on planet Earth can survive without it. It is a prerequisite for human health and well-being as well as for the preservation of the environment.

Background - Water for Life 29 Nov. 2010

Hydrology is the multidisciplinary science that seeks to understand, describe, and predict the occurrence, circulation, and distribution of water on and under the Earth's land surface, as well as the physical, chemical, and biological interactions of this water with the terrestrial environments of our planet.

Warf, B. (2010). Hydrology. In Encyclopedia of geography (Vol. 1, pp. 1514-1518). SAGE Publications, Inc.,

In the Library's collections

Resources on Water are scattered among various call number ranges, subjects and libraries. Subject headings and call number ranges include:

  • water
  • water supply
  • water consumption
  • water security
  • water resources development
  • hydrology
    The call number range is GB 651 through GB 2998.

Introductory reading(s)

  • Cover artInternational encyclopedia of geography: people, the Earth, environment, and technology by Douglas Richardson; Noel Castree; Michael F. Goodchild; Audrey Kobayashi; Weidong Liu; Richard A. Marston, eds.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780470659632
    This publication contains a variety of articles on different aspects of water.
  • USGS logoWater basics from the USGS by U. S. Geological Survey
    • Link
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    You've heard the phrase, and for water, it really is true. Earth's water is (almost) everywhere: above the Earth in the air and clouds, on the surface of the Earth in rivers, oceans, ice, plants, in living organisms, and inside the Earth in the top few miles of the ground. ...
  • Cover artWater resources from the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography by Fiona Allon
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    Publication Date: 2nd ed.
    No other natural resource is more contested than water. Climate change and the associated extreme weather events have contributed to the challenges presented by a modern era of floods, drought, water pollution, and growing freshwater shortages. New global water arrangements for managing water, characterized by large-scale infrastructural projects, an emphasis on the “efficient” use of scarce resources, and an understanding of water as an “economic good,” have been the predominant responses to what is increasingly regarded as a global water crisis. ...
  • Cover artWater dictionary: a comprehensive reference of water terminology by Nancy McTigue; James M. Symons, eds.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781583217412
    Publication Date: 2nd ed.
    Newly updated and expanded, The Water Dictionary provides standardized definitions for thousands of water- and wastewater-related words, phrases, acronyms, chemicals, and microorganisms.
  • Cover artThe water encyclopedia: hydrologic data and Internet resources by Jr Fierro; Evan K. Nyer, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry TC 403 .W38 2007
    ISBN: 9781566706452
    Publication Date: 3rd ed.
    "Just do an Internet search." "It's on the Internet" These phrases have quickly become a part of the vernacular. The quintessential book of data relating to water, The Water Encyclopedia: Hydrologic Data and Internet Resources arose from the premise that most of the information provided within this publication could be easily found on the Internet. As the editors and their team of contributors soon discovered, using the Internet for research can be problematic. Too much, too little, and questionable data sets can influence the caliber of your results. ...

Selected book titles

  • Cover artGlobal change: impacts on water and food security by Claudia Ringler; Asit K. Biswas; Sarah Cline, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry S 600.7 .C54 G55 2010
    ISBN: 9783642046148
    In recent years, a greater level of integration of the world economy and an opening of national markets to trade has impacted virtually all areas of society. The process of globalization has the potential to generate long-term benefits for developing countries, including enhanced technology and knowledge transfers and new financing options supporting agricultural and economic development. However, risks of political and economic instability, increased inequality, and losses in agricultural income and production for countries that subsidize their agricultural and other economic sectors threaten to offset potential benefits. Globalization can also have a profound impact on the water sector - in terms of allocation and use of water - and thus on food security as well. ...
  • Cover artGroundwater and climate in Africa by Richard G. Taylor ... [et al.]
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry GB 652 .G76 2008
    ISBN: 9781907161056
  • Cover artIntroduction to water in California by David Carle
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780520287891
    Publication Date: 2nd ed.
    This thoroughly engaging, concise book tells the story of California's most precious resource, tracing the journey of water in the state from the atmosphere to the snowpack to our faucets and foods. Along the way, we learn much about California itself as the book describes its rivers, lakes, wetlands, dams, and aqueducts and discusses the role of water in agriculture, the environment, and politics. ...
  • Cover artThe price of thirst: global water inequality and the coming chaos by Karen Piper
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780816695423
    "There's Money in Thirst," reads a headline in the New York Times. The CEO of Nestlé, purveyor of bottled water, heartily agrees. It is important to give water a market value, he says in a promotional video, so "we're all aware that it has a price." But for those who have no access to clean water, a fifth of the world's population, the price is thirst. ...
  • Cover artWater: the final resource: how the politics of water will impact on the world by Robin Griffiths; William Houston
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry HD 1691 .H68 2008
    ISBN: 9781905641666
    William Houston and Robin Griffiths have turned their attention to one of the biggest challenges being faced across the globe today: Water. Up to the turn of the century the world's population had grown with water abundant in most developing countries. Then everything changed. Ocean oscillations (which affect the weather patterns) have altered, leading to droughts in areas that were expecting rain, and flooding for those previously anticipating arid conditions. The result is that around a fifth of the world's population will receive much less rain than expected. ...
  • Cover artWhat is water?: the history of a modern abstraction by Jamie Linton
    • Book
    Call Number: baker-Berry GB 665 .L56 2010
    ISBN: 9780774817011
    We all know what water is, and we often take it for granted. But the spectre of a worldwide water crisis suggests that there might be something fundamentally wrong with the way we think about water. Jamie Linton dives into the history of water as an abstract concept, stripped of its environmental, social, and cultural contexts. Reduced to a scientific abstraction - to mere H20 - this concept has given modern society licence to dam, divert, and manipulate water with apparent impunity. ...

Other library resource(s)

  • Cover artBlue gold: world water wars by Sam Bozzo
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #11301
    ISBN: 9780793670208
    Blue Gold: World Water Wars examines environmental and political implications of the planet's dwindling water supply, and posits that wars in the future will be fought over water. The film also highlights some success stories of water activists around the world and makes a strong case for community action.
  • Dam/age: a film with Arundhati Roy by Aradhana Seth
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5987
    Traces writer Arundhati Roy's bold and controversial campaign against the Narmada Valley dam project in India, a massive undertaking that would drown fertile farmlands and displace over a million people.
  • Movie poster artFlow: for love of water by Irena Salina
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #8129
    Builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel. Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis... begging the question: Can anyone really own water?
  • Owners of the water: conflict and collaboration over rivers by Laura R. Graham, David Hernández Palmar and Caimi Waiassé
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #13142
    A central Brazilian Xavante, a Wayuu from Venezuela, and a US anthropologist explore an indigenous campaign to protect a river from devastating effects of uncontrolled Amazonian soy cultivation. The film results from long collaboration between anthropologist Laura Graham and Xavante, and more recent collaboration with Wayuu. The Association Xavante Warã, a Xavante organization that promotes indigenous knowledge and ways of living in the central Brazilian cerrado (a spiritually and materially integrated space that Xavante know as ʹró) and conservation of this unique environment, invited Graham to tell the story of its campaign to save the Rio das Mortes. David Hernández Palmar, a Wayuu (Iipuana clan) from Venezuela, accompanied Graham to meet the Xavante and learn about their struggles over water.
  • Cover artTexas water atlas by Lawrence E. Estaville; Richard A. Earl
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry GB 705 .T4 E88 2008
    ISBN: 9781603440202
    Rainfall, hurricanes, rivers, reservoirs, springs, lakes, aquifers, wetlands, floodplains, water parks, irrigation, wells--the list of water-related topics in Texas is long and critical to the state's economic and political future. Texas Water Atlas provides the first comprehensive reference for water-related topics in Texas. Geographers Lawrence E. Estaville and Richard A. Earl have compiled a host of data to visually convey vital information on Texas' climate, surface and groundwater, water uses and hazards, water quantity and quality, recreation, future supply projections, and the environmental management of its water resources. ...
  • Thirst by Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4616
    The survival of communities is threatened when big business buys the water supply in the third world. This is a look at how water is becoming the catalyst for community resistance to globalization, and at the conflict between public stewardship and private profit.
  • Water in a changing world by World Water Assessment Programme
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker/Berry HD 1691 .W3233 2009 text
    ISBN: 184407840X
    Also has Facing the challenges : case studies volume and an accompanying disc in the Jones Media Center.

Finding scholarly journal articles

To find articles on water around the world, you can use the search box at the top of the page.

  • Issue cover artJournal of the American Water Resources Association by AWRA
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    The Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) is dedicated to publishing original papers characterized by its broad approach to water resources issues. Water by its nature is complex. ...
  • The world's water: the biennial report on freshwater resources by Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security
    • Book
    Call Number: TD 345 .G633
  • Water alternatives
    • Open Access Icon
    Call Number: Electronic journal
  • Resource logoWater resources abstracts by ProQuest
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    An article index for all things related to water.
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  • Next: Islands >>
  • Last Updated: May 8, 2025 4:47 PM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/geography
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Subjects: Geography
Tags: AAG, biogeography, climatology, commodity_chains, cultural_geography, food, GEOG, geomorphology, globalization, human_geography, international_trade, islands, migration_studies, physical sciences, physical_geography, polar_studies, political_geography, population_, Social Sciences

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