★From Egypt to the Yellow River Basin, from the clouds to our taps: a revealing journey through the unknown world of water.
★This book delves into the exploration of "water", which defines us as a vital resource, examining its origins, history, the conflicts it has inspired, and strategies we can implement to ensure a sustainable supply of this resources for future generation.

Where does water come from? How do we humans use it? When did we learn to control it? How does it reach our faucets and what happens then? What is it like in China? What about in Brazil? What about in the United States? Were or are there armed conflicts triggered by water? Is there enough water to serve all? Are our supplies at risk in the near future?

We are all familiar with water. We all have faucets, flush toilets and showers. We've all witnessed rivers flowing or rain falling from the sky. We've all heard of injection and treatment plants. Therefore, we think we know everything there is to know about water. But does it really? Adam Smith presents us the paradox about the value of resources: water, which is essential to life, is of little value compared to diamonds, while diamonds, which serve no purpose, are extremely expensive. ... It turns out that everything related to water management falls into the “unpredictable aspects of civilization": those invisible systems that we don't know but cannot survive without for even a week.

This book provides answers to many questions and is a "Water Engineering for Non-Engineers" book. It is dedicated to anyone interested in “water” and aims to make more people understand how we manage this incredible resource and what we can expect from “water” in the future. We will explore water from a use perspective, from the four large hydraulic civilizations that developed irrigation and used it to grow cities and food surpluses - Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River Basin - to water technologies, water distribution, security, and dams that are as old as our own civilizations. We will learn how treatment plants, water purification plants and desalination plants work. We will also take up some of the debates about water use, many of which may be unresolvable, as well as about the complex management of this very limited resource in many places. Finally, we will analyze water-related issues and conflicts, such as water-induced wars, and look at future prospects in the context of climate change.

Jesús M. Paniagua
Born in Soria in 1965, he is an agronomic engineer and has dedicated his career to environmental engineering and the planning, design and construction of facilities that allow us to better manage the environment. His experience has been particularly focused on waste treatment plants and hydraulic engineering. He is also a teacher at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, the Universidad Pública de Navarra and in several Master's programs on environmental topics. His entire career has been developed in Spain, as well as in countries such as Brazil, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Romania and China, and these experiences are inclined inside this particularly popularized and generalized book. In his side as a popularizer of science, he has collaborated with radio stations, courses and lectures, and has already published the book "Garbage" (2022) on waste management around the world.