Technology Review - Published By MIT
Advertisement
TO READ THIS STORY - you must have a paid subscription to Technology Review OR you can purchase special archive reading credits here. Choose from these great offers below.
I'm a paid subscriber please
log me in
I want to purchase this article for
only $1.99
(requires login)
I want to purchase five articles for
only $3.99
(requires login)
I want to buy
1 Year TOTAL Access for
only $24.95
(requires login)

Please note: Click here if you are currently a Technology Review print or digital subscriber and do not have access to this article.

Click here if you are an MIT alum and do not have access to this article.

April 1997

Dividing the Water

Water may seem to be everywhere, but for a rising portion of the world's population, there may soon be hardly a drop to drink -or to use for growing food, supporting industries and cities, and preserving life-giving ecosystems.

By Sandra Postel

Deep in the delta of the Colorado River, the Cocopa people have fished and farmed for perhaps 2,000 years. They once harvested a grain they called nipa, a unique salt-loving plant known to botanists as Distichlis palmeri that tastes much like wild rice. Protein was also abundant: they sometimes ate fish three times a day, and they hunted deer, wild boar, ducks, and geese. Known as "people of the river," the Cocopa had no formal calendar but keyed their lives to the Colorado's seasonal floods. While no census documented their numbers, historical accounts suggest that about 5,000 Cocopa were living in the delta 400 years ago.

Select from the choices above
to read the entire article.


Log In

Forgot your password?     Register »
Advertisement

Videos

Malleable Maps, Artistic Robots and Bubble Interfaces
Technology Review January/February 2010

Current Issue

Security in the Ether
Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud--and prove we can trust it.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Subscribe to Technology Review's daily e-mail update. Enter your e-mail address

TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES
Advertisement
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2010 Technology Review. All Rights Reserved.