South Africa faces a water shortage and supply crisis that threatens its development. All our water systems - rivers, vleis and estuaries - are becoming less and less natural. Their very nature as water providers is being altered and destroyed by ill-considered human intervention, sheer ignorance and neglect. Vanishing waters details southern Africa's water-supply crisis, distribution of water, and the misuse and abuse of water through over-engineering for water supply projects and over-abstraction by farming communities and urban populations. The book is fully illustrated with line-drawings, maps, tables, graphs and charts. An illustrated identification key provides a guide to the major groups of invertebrate organisms of southern African inland waters. An extensive glossary and index make this an excellent reference source.