Liquid Asset

How Business and Government Can Partner to Solve the Freshwater Crisis

By: Barton H. Thompson

Narrated by: Gary Roelofs

Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Governments dominated water management throughout the twentieth century. Tasked with ensuring a public supply of clean, safe, reliable, and affordable water, governmental agencies controlled water administration in most of the world. Today, given the global need for innovative new technologies, institutions, and financing to solve the freshwater crisis, private businesses and markets are playing a rapidly expanding role, bringing both new approaches and new challenges to a historically public field.

In Liquid Asset, Barton H. Thompson, Jr. examines the growing position of the private sector in the "business of water." Thompson seeks to understand the private sector's involvement in meeting the water needs of both humans and the environment, looks at the potential risks that growing private involvement poses to the public interest in water, and considers the obstacles that private organizations face in trying to participate in a traditionally governmental sector. Thompson provides a richly detailed analysis to foster both improved public policy and responsible business behavior. As the book demonstrates, the story of private businesses and water offers a window into the serious challenges facing freshwater today, and their potential solutions.

The book is published by Stanford University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2024 Baron H. Thompson, Jr. (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"An engaging and well-written blueprint ..." (Nicole Neeman Brady, Vice President of the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners)

"A clarion call for greater involvement by the business community...offers original insights for effective environmental stewardship." (Robert Glennon, University of Arizona College of Law)

"If you want to understand the future of water management in the United States, read this book." (James Salzman, UCLA Law School)