The Man Who Thought He Owned Water is author Tershia dElgins fresh take on the gravest challenge of our timehow to support urbanization without killing ourselves in the process. The gritty story of her familys experience with water rights on its Colorado farm provides essential background about American farms food and water administration in the West in the context of growing cities and climate change. Enchanting and informative The Man Who Thought He Owned Water is an appeal for urbanrural cooperation over water and resiliency. ampnbsp When her father bought his farmBig Bend Stationhe also bought the ample water rights associated with the land and the South Platte River confident that he had secured the necessary resources for a successful endeavor. Yet water immediately proved fickle hard to defend and sometimes dangerous. Eventually those rights were curtailed without compensation. Through her familys story dElgin dramatically frames the personalscale implications of water competition revealing how water deals infrastructure transport and management create economic growth but also sever human connections to Earths most vital resource. She shows how water flows to cities at the expense of Americangrown food as rural land turns to desert wildlife starves the environment degrades and climate change intensifies. ampnbsp Depicting deep love obsession and breathtaking landscape The Man Who Thought He Owned Waterampnbspis an impassioned call to rebalance our relationship with water. It will be of great interest to anyone seeking to understand the complex forces affecting water resources food supply food security and biodiversity in America. ampnbsp