Best Environmental Hydrology

World renowned scientist, Dr. Gerald Pollack, takes us on a fantastic voyage through water, showing us a hidden universe teeming with physical activity— providing simple explanations for common everyday phenomena, which you have inevitably seen but not really understood. When touching most surfaces, water transforms itself into so-called EZ (Exclusion Zone) water, also known as structured water or fourth phase water. Praise for The Fourth Phase of Water: “The most informative, eye-opening, mind-blowing book that I ever recall reading.”. -Henry Bauer, Dean Emeritus, Arts and Sciences, Virginia Tech. Ever wonder What mysteries lurk in the depths of a glass of water? What keeps Jell-O's water from oozing out? Questions such as those have remained unanswered not only because they have seemed complex, but also because they require that scientists pursue a politically risky domain of science: water research. Scientists trying to understand the “social behavior” of H20 do so at grave risk to their reputations and livelihoods because water science has suffered repeated fiascos. Water scientists have been virtually tarred and feathered.Undaunted, one scientist has navigated the perils of water science by conducting dozens of simple, carefully controlled experiments and piecing together the first coherent account of water's three dimensional structure and behavior.Professor Pollack takes us on a fantastic voyage through water, showing us a hidden universe teeming with physical activity that provides answers so simple that any curious person can understand. In conversational prose, Pollack relentlessly documents just where some scientists may have gone wrong with their Byzantine theories, and instead lays a simple foundation for understanding how changes of water structure underlie most energetic transitions of form and motion on Earth.Pollack invites us to open our eyes and re-experience our natural world, to take nothing for granted, and to reawaken our childhood dream of having things make sense. ". The most interesting science book I've ever read. Devouring his book has inspired in me a whole new burst of enthusiasm for science." " With balance and grace, Pollack seems to have come closest to presenting a 'unified field' vision of matter through the lens of water." " This amazing book has changed my understanding of all the processes going on in water which I was confident I knew about -- the understanding that dictated my many years of teaching and organized my research.

In his eye-opening books The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs and The Natural Navigator , Tristan Gooley helped readers reconnect with nature by finding direction from the trees, stars, clouds, and more. He starts small, at a mud puddle watching ripples fan out from a pebble drop, and ends big, in the frigid reaches of the Arctic Sea. If you like water, as I do, you will learn a lot.”— The Wall Street Journal “[Gooley’s] detailed observations are breathtaking as he patiently explains how to see . Jam-packed with information, birders, naturalists, hikers, hunters, and anyone interested in the natural world will find much of use.”— Forbes. With unflappable practicality, he shares simple ways to understand your surroundings, whether you’re beside a stream or on the open sea at night, without instruments.” — Discover. “With the help of this book, and with careful attention and observation, anyone can learn how to interpret the messages water offers to aid in everything from navigation to weather forecasting. A Sunday Times “Must Read” book. “This inspired guide to water in all its forms will make a big splash. Gooley even manages to explain tides coherently and excitingly in just 14 pages, which is quite some feat, given that they are a lot more complicated than being a mere effect of the moon's gravity.”— Sunday Times. His tales recount wisdom gathered on the ground (literally), often by trial and error, and his joy at discovering something almost makes you feel you did the work yourself. “He writes with passion, humor, and clarity, and engages so deeply with the tributaries of inquiry that reading it feels as exhilarating as being towed by a dolphin. There's so much here that I can't do it justice; chapters on water at night; currents and tides; reading waves; the coast. He has certainly achieved his objective and I doubt I will now ever be able to walk past a lake or even a pond without checking for surface patterns.”— thebookbag.co.uk. “Gooley, who has single-handedly been reviving natural navigation in this age of GPS, has the birdwatching skills of Bill Oddie and the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes. Through his teaching and writing, Tristan Gooley has pioneered a renaissance in the rare art of natural navigation. He has led expeditions on five continents, climbed mountains in three, and studied the methods of tribal peoples in some of the remotest regions on Earth.

The story Owen tells in Where the Water Goes is crucial to our future: how a patchwork of engineering marvels, byzantine legal agreements, aging infrastructure, and neighborly cooperation enables life to flourish in the desert —and the disastrous consequences we face when any part of this tenuous system fails. As Owen shows, the Colorado River is a great, sad, terrifying, possibly hopeful example of the pervasive, permanent mark people are making on the planet.” — The New York Times Book Review “This wonderfully written book covers issue that will, or should, give you a headache. Mr. Owen writes about water, but in these polarized times the lessons he shares spill into other arenas. “Owen is effortlessly engaging, informally parceling out information about acre-foot allotments alongside sketches of notable, often dreadful figures in the river's history… Where the Water Goes doesn't pretend to solve the problems Owen acknowledges are overwhelming and, in some ways, impossible. “Part road-trip documentary, part memoir, and part geopolitical and hydrology lesson, author David Owen’s book follows the historical and geographic course of the river, the water it carries, and the lives that depend on it… [Owen] effectively describes the links between historic precedents, choices, and events that led the river and the millions of people who depend upon it to the present state.” — Science Magazine. “David Owen's new book, Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River … handles its sprawling subject with deftness and quirkiness… Owen delves into the history and politics of the much-dammed, over-allocated river, as well as the arcana of Western water law and the weirdness of RV culture, without losing sight of larger questions about the sustainability of America's efforts to make the desert bloom.” — Westword. “Owen offers a wealth of engrossing and often surprising details about the complicated nature of water rights, recreational usage (worth $26 billion a year), and depletion threats from climate change and the fracking industry. With water shortages looming across the globe, Owen’s work provides invaluable lessons on the rewards and pitfalls involved in managing an essential natural resource.” — Booklist. But David Owen fills in so many gaps that I feel that I've been to water reeducation camp.

A New York Times bestseller, Deep Down Dark brings to haunting, tactile life the experience of being imprisoned inside a mountain of stone, the horror of being slowly consumed by hunger, and the spiritual and mystical elements that surrounded working in such a dangerous place. “Weaving together the drama of the miners' harrowing ordeal below ground with the anguish of families and rescuers on the surface, Tobar delivers a masterful account of exile and human longing, of triumph in the face of all odds. Taut with suspense and moments of tenderness and replete with a cast of unforgettable characters, Deep Down Dark ranks with the best of adventure literature. As Tobar works his way through each miner's recovery, the TV headlines recede from our memory, and a more delicate series of portraits emerges.” ― Noah Gallagher Shannon, The Washington Post. Whether the story is completely new to you, or if you were one of the millions glued to the news reports and wondering, will they make it--physically, emotionally, spiritually--you'll be greatly rewarded to learn how they did.” ― Mac McClelland, The New York Times Book Review. A novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, [Tobar] combines a historian's eye for context with a gifted storyteller's ear for minor-key character traits . “If Dante's Inferno was a real place, it would look and feel like the subterranean fever dream Héctor Tobar describes in Deep Down Dark . Taking us into the post-apocalyptic landscape of Chile's Atacama Desert and guiding us through the labyrinthine hell of the world's most famous mine accident, Tobar's taut narrative plumbs the depths not only of the mine itself, but of the 33 trapped miners' hearts and souls as they fight for life, and reconcile themselves--first, to death, and then to the far more challenging task of surviving. “Héctor Tobar takes us so far down into the story and lives of the Chilean miners that his reconstruction of a workplace disaster becomes a riveting meditation on universal human themes. “In this masterful dissection of the 2010's dramatic sixty-nine day ordeal by thirty-three trapped Chilean miners, Héctor Tobar weaves a suspenseful narrative that moves back and forth between the waking nightmares of the buried men, and those of their families on the earth's surface. “It's almost hard to believe that Héctor Tobar wasn't himself one of the trapped Chilean miners, so vivid, immediate, terrifying, emotional, and convincing is his Homeric narration of this extraordinary incident. Deep Down Dark is a literary masterpiece of narrative journalism, surgical in its reconstruction, novelistic in its explorations of human personality and nuance. In a manner that feels spiritual, Tobar puts himself at the service of his story, and his fidelity to and unquenchable curiosity about every fact and detail generates unforgettable wonderment and awe.” ― Francisco Goldman. I know 2014 still has three months left to go, but I don’t expect to find anything I liked better than Héctor Tobar’s Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free. You know the story – 33 men were buried in a spectacular mine collapse, stayed underground for two months, and then were rescued, all of them unharmed. Henry Leyva's audiobook credits include reading Colin Harrison's The Havana Room , Michael Palmer's Fatal , Lawrence Block's Killing Castro , and John Grisham's The Testament as well as works from popular authors such as Nicholas Sparks and Phyllis Naylor.