The Water Environment

This book uses a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to examine the urban water environment. Water has multiple roles: municipal water supply, aquatic habitat, landscape aesthetics and recreation. Increasingly, urban water is reused, serving multiple purposes.

A water strider darts across a pond, its feet dimpling the surface tension; a giant water bug dives below, carrying his mate’s eggs on his back; hidden among plant roots on the silty bottom, a dragonfly larva stalks unwary minnows. Barely skimming the surface, in the air above the pond, swarm mayflies with diaphanous wings. Take this walk around the pond with Gilbert Waldbauer and discover the most amazingly diverse inhabitants of the freshwater world.