“Slow Water”
Trouble with water – extreme and frequent floods and droughts — is one of the first obvious signs of climate change. At the same time, our built environment — urban sprawl, industrial agricultural and the engineered way we manage water — is making things worse. As our control systems fail, we are forced to reckon with an eternal truth: water always wins.
Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge begins by asking a revolutionary question: What does water want? Most modern development has erased water’s slow phases — wetlands, floodplains, high altitude grasslands and forests — that soften flood peaks, store water for droughts, and keep natural systems healthy. What water wants, say water detectives exploring this question, is a kind of un-engineering that reclaims these slow cycles, offering us greater resilience.
For that reason, author Erica Gies calls their efforts the “Slow Water” movement. Slow Water solutions are place-specific and community oriented. They center on water’s relationships with rocks, microbes, plants, and animals, including humans. Practitioners aim to collaborate with water rather than try to control it. Water Always Wins takes readers on a journey through time and around the world, introducing them to the wonder of water and to people innovating these Slow Water approaches to adapt to climate change and heal our water bodies.
Erica is represented by The Martell Agency in New York, and Water Always Wins is available through the University of Chicago Press in North America and by Head of Zeus in the United Kingdom.
Reviews & Honors
“No force of nature has more powerfully shaped the human adventure than water, for the obvious reason that we can’t live without it. Much of what we call civilization has entailed civilizing this substance—mostly by hemming it in. In this sparkling, flowing, world-spanning narrative, Gies compellingly shows why water will always win in the end, particularly in an urbanizing world facing disruptive climate change. She also reveals, through guides ranging from China’s ‘sponge city’ designers to beavers, how liberating water can liberate us, in turn.”
Andrew Revkin, coauthor of The Human Planet and former New York Times climate reporter
*
“A gripping investigation into water and the champion sleuths who research it and engage in daunting yet necessary efforts to restore health to a damaged planet…. Considering exploding populations, water inequality, and ever-increasing climate crises, Gies persuasively argues that much must and can be done to improve our understanding of and relationship with water.”
Booklist
*
“Water Always Wins reveals the mysteries of water’s journey from source to sea, and shows how working with nature can help save us from the ravages of climate change. Through fascinating stories and detailed research, Gies challenges modern societies to relinquish some control, and let water go where it wants to go. This eye-opening book is filled with brilliant insights, creativity, inspiration, and honest hope.”
Sandra Postel, author of Replenish and winner of the 2021 Stockholm Water Prize
*
Finalist
Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year prize
Social Sciences and Humanities category
*
“We’ve tried, in every way we know, to control and contain water on this planet. But there are limits to our power, which become clearer as escalating cycles of flooding and drought increasingly make a mockery of our efforts. As Gies ably demonstrates, the time has come to learn some lessons from liquid, and to start trying to live gracefully in our wonderfully aqueous world.”
Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
*
“Vibrant…. An inspiring, insightful book about the myriad ways that ‘water detectives’
are helping water to heal the planet.”
*
“From California’s agricultural lands to the marshes of Iraq, from beavers to microinvertebrates, from early water cultures in India and Peru to today’s water crises and the challenges of climate change, Gies uses her formidable reporting skills and personal experiences to weave together beautiful stories about water, its impact on our lives, and how it’s long past time to repair our relationship with this most precious resource.”
Peter Gleick, founder of Pacific Institute
*
“In a world awash with water stress, Gies and the many people featured in her pages are leading the way to a future where people might live in a sustainable relationship with the element that sustains us all. It is entertaining, engaging, and applicable nearly everywhere in the world—every reader will find connections to their home communities here.”
Peter K. Brewitt, Wofford College
Selected Print Media
- The New York Times: Op/Ed — California Could Capture Floodwaters to Fight Drought
- The Guardian: Excerpt — Slow Water: Can We Tame Urban Floods by Going with the Flow?
- Times Literary Supplement: Review — Friend, Not Commodity
- Psyche: Excerpt — What Does Water Want? Most Humans Seem to Have Forgotten
- Chicago Tribune: Comment — Promontory Point Is Crumbling. ‘Slow Water’ Fixes May Be Critical
- Science News: Review — In the Battle of Human vs. Water, ‘Water Always Wins’
- New Scientist: The best science books coming your way in 2022
- Literary Review of Canada: Review — It Will Come to Pass
- Earth Island Journal: Excerpt — Collaboration, Not Control
- Undark: Review — Helping Water Find Its Own Level
- Nautilus: Excerpt — Why We Need Muck to Fight Rising Sea Levels
- National Observer: Print — Reflections on the Extraordinary Power of Slow Water
- Hakai Magazine: Excerpt — Letting the Sea Have Its Way
- Civil Eats: Print — A Return to Wild, Unrestricted Waterways Offers Solutions
- Ensia: Excerpt — To Minimize Floods and Droughts, We Need to Ask What Water Wants
- Great Lakes Now: Print — “Quietly Radical” Book Makes Case for Slow Water
- American Scientist: Review — Going With the Flow
- The Revelator: Print — Why We Need Slow Solutions to Our Water Problems
- KQED Science: Print — Ancient River Beds Could Hold Solution to California’s Water Woes
- Capital Daily: Excerpt — How “Water Detectives” Are Protecting Cities
- Inside Climate News: Print — Climate Change Is Water Change
- Geographical: Review — Water Always Wins by Erica Gies
- South China Morning Post: Excerpt — The Urban Flooding Solution to China’s Deadly Problem
TV & Radio Appearances
- PBS Amanpour & Co: TV — A NatGeo Explorer’s Quest to Help Solve Drought
- KQED Forum: Radio — Flooding During Drought: Rethinking California’s Water System
- KQED Forum: Radio — Solutions to Drought and Deluge in Asking, ‘What Does Water Want?’
- KERA Think: Radio — Rising Seas, Floods, or Droughts: Living with Water as Nature Intended
- CBC What on Earth: Radio — Drought, Deluge, and the Fix: Doing What Water Wants
- NM PBS Our Land: TV — ‘Recalibrating’ Our Relationships with Water
- ABC 7 News: TV — Bay Area ‘Water Always Wins’ Author Surveys World for Water Solutions
- Wisconsin Public Radio Ideas Network: Radio — What Water Wants, and How to Live With It
- KPFA Terra Verde: Radio — What Water Wants
- CBC On the Island: Radio — Water Always Wins author Erica Gies
- KQED Morning Edition: Radio — Solution for California’s Drought Could Lie Beneath Us
- ABC 7 News: TV — How CA’s Ancient Hidden Waterways Can Recharge Groundwater
- WVIK Quad Cities NPR: Radio — Water Always Wins
Podcasts
- Mongabay: Podcast — ‘Water Always Wins’ So Why Are We Fighting It?
- Water Talk: Podcast — Slow Water Movements
- New Books Network: Podcast — Water Always Wins
- Speaking of Water: Podcast — What Does Water Want? A Conversation with Author Erica Gies
- California Sun: Podcast — Erica Gies Explains Why Water Always Wins
- The Planet: Podcast — Innovators in the Slow Water movement
- Sustain What?: Conversation — Water Always Wins, But That Doesn’t Mean We Lose
- Jive Talking: Podcast — Erica Gies Explains Why Water Always Wins
- BlueNote: Podcast — Climate Disasters Remind Us Every Day: Our World Is Not Stable
Speaking Engagements
- United Nations 2023 Water Conference, New York City, March 22-24, 2023: Speaker
- Illinois Association for Floodplain and Stormwater Management, March 15, 2023: Keynote speaker
- Tucson Festival of Books, March 4-5, 2023: Presenting author
- River Restoration Northwest, Skamania, Wash., February 7-10, 2023: Keynote speaker
- Eco-Farm Conference, Monterey, Calif. January 18-21, 2023: Keynote speaker
- American Water Resources Association conference, Seattle, November 7, 2022: Keynote speaker
- Water Education Foundation Water Summit, Sacramento, October 27, 2022: Keynote speaker
- Frontiers in Hydrology, AGU, San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 22, 2022: Presenter
- BlueTech Forum, Vancouver, June 6-8, 2022: Keynote speaker
Newsletter
Subscribe to Erica Gies’ mailing list to receive occasional updates about Water Always Wins and book-related appearances, or follow her Slow Water page on Facebook.