The Last Drop cover art

The Last Drop

Solving the World's Water Crisis

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The Last Drop

By: Tim Smedley
Narrated by: Tim Smedley
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About this listen

Read by the author, Tim Smedley.

The Times Book of the Year pick

A gripping, thought-provoking and ultimately optimistic investigation into the world’s next great climate crisis – the scarcity of water.


‘Smart, sobering, and scholarly. ’ – Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs

Water scarcity is the next big climate crisis. Water stress – not just scarcity, but also quality issues caused by pollution – is already driving the first waves of climate refugees. Rivers are drying out before they meet the oceans and ancient lakes are disappearing. It’s increasingly clear that human mismanagement of water is dangerously unsustainable, for both ecological and human survival. And yet in recent years some key countries have been quietly and very successfully addressing water stress.

How are Singapore and Israel, for example – both severely water-stressed countries – not in the same predicament as Chennai or California?

In The Last Drop, award-winning environmental journalist Tim Smedley meets experts, victims, activists and pioneers to find out how we can mend the water table that our survival depends upon. He offers a fascinating, universally relevant account of the environmental and human factors that have led us to this point, and suggests practical ways to address the crisis, before it’s too late.

'You will never see the water you use in the same way again' – Helen Czerski, BBC broadcaster

©2023 Tim Smedley (P)2023 Macmillan Publishers International Limited
Environment Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Conservation Pollution Natural Resource

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Critic reviews

Tim Smedley’s sometimes angry, always informed book is a smouldering indictment of the self-inflicted water wounds we’re causing ourselves and our planet. (Mark Rowe)
All stars
Most relevant  
This book does an amazing job of showing the fragility and for some regions, near collapse of our current water resources. There are lots of great case, studies, figures and first person narratives in this book that make it both highly informative and engaging to read. This is a topic I've been interested in for a few years, so I'd read some of the studies referenced, but until now I'd never been able to find a good easy reading book on the topic.

The book to read on water scarcity and misuse

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