A collection of the true stories of people - men and women, politicians and scientists, laymen and experts - sharing in their own words what they have seen and what they have learned in their efforts to bring clean water to all.

Foreword / Peter Gleick -- The end of the Colorado : fishing with the Cucupá / Frank Clifford -- A river story : cleaning up the Nashua / Marion Stoddart -- Liquid assets on steep slopes : solving water shortages through ancient knowledge / Anupam Mishra -- Honest hope : searching for a new water ethic / Sandra Postel -- Respect for water : reflecting on a lifetime of environmental reporting / Fred Pearce -- Another Africa is possible : witnessing the consequences of Kenya's flower farms / Maude Barlow -- The unmentionables : talking about sanitation / Rose George -- Brides of the well : a short story / Shekhar Kapur -- A world that works : breaking places / Bill McKibben -- Photography journey : taking the long view at Mount Everest / Alton C. Byers -- What's in a name : monitoring the "miner's canary" in the Congo / Melanie Stiassny -- The fear of doing without : bringing fresh water and new ideas to the Dominican Republic / Ellsworth Havens -- Water man : reviving arid villages / Rajendra Singh -- A ride for nature : traveling the West by horseback / William "Waterway" Marks -- Water changes everything : building a charity / Scott Harrison -- Save what's left : teaching kids to love rain forests / Lynne Cherry -- To save a gull : taxing yourself / Alex Matthiessen -- Dynamic for change : recognizing the importance of the watershed / Christine Todd Whitman -- The páramos of Ayabaca : defending water and place / Jorge Recharte -- Tending the land : reclaiming our food / Frederick Kirschenmann -- A walk along the river : caring for watersheds / Dave Rosgen -- On the heads of women : safeguarding water / Kathy Robb -- Two noble truths : the ultraviolet solution to clean water / Ashok Gadgil -- Nature abhors a monopoly : how we, like Kalahari bushmen, can trade our human right to water / James Workman -- Water is life : stories from a blue planet / Alexandra Cousteau.