It actually took me much longer to get (slog?) through this than I thought. Reiser writes very entertainingly, but, in a challenge I myself will be confronting too soon, he has so much information and knows his topic so well, it just ends up really dense. Again, I think he wrote well at the micro level of prose, and at the broader level of narrative, with characters, plot lines, etc. It's just ... a lot. Certainly, given my own interests and expertise, a big theme involves bureaucratic pathology, especially in the high modern era of technical and administrative hubris, a belief in neverending progress, and the basic problems of "Seeing Like A State", where Leviathan doesn't see, hear, smell or feel beautiful flowing water and all the live it brings, all of the amazing geology it produces, etc., etc., but a tableau to be made legible, brought under control, made "useful".

Yeesh. Terrible. And what a pickle it has gotten us into, not least in the face of accelerating climate change! We no longer face drought, some hydrologist was just quoted in the NYT or somewhere, we are dealing with aridification.

Ther is some good news. Some dams are coming down. Native Americans' rights seem to be factoring in more heavily than they ever have. Urban water usage is becoming more and more efficient.

The big problem, of course, remains ag. And that has to do with how we eat and, because money flows from that, and because this is America, where we live by the Golden Rule ("those who have the gold make the rules"), xeriscaping our yards will save a proverbial drop in the bucket. We need to stop eating meat (I have not yet) and start factoring water into our eating decisions to a far greater degree (not just energy consumption, pollution, etc.) than we currently are.

Fascinating stuff, not going to get any easier! Well worth reading and having on your shelf if you live west of the hundredth meridian and/or care about the long run future of our civilization.