An interesting piece by Will Hazell in the TES earlier in the week explored how water cycle diagrams in textbooks don't include all the nuanced changes and influences that human activities are now having on them, and give an unrealistic picture of the water cycle.
Alice Roberts mentioned them as well:
Professor Ben Abbott from Brigham Young University is quote in the piece as saying,
"...our drawings of the water cycle are stuck in the 17th century."
"Better drawings of the water cycle won't solve the global water crisis on their own, but they could improve awareness of how local water use and climate change have global consequences."
Alice Roberts mentioned them as well:
A picture paints a thousand words - and water cycle diagrams convey a false sense of security by omitting an important factor: humans https://t.co/Q5n6UPldsw @unibirmingham pic.twitter.com/SKVRILu1va— Prof Alice Roberts (@theAliceRoberts) June 13, 2019
Professor Ben Abbott from Brigham Young University is quote in the piece as saying,
"...our drawings of the water cycle are stuck in the 17th century."
"Better drawings of the water cycle won't solve the global water crisis on their own, but they could improve awareness of how local water use and climate change have global consequences."
The examples on the tweets and articles that I read were quite small and hard to read, so I thought to myself, readers of Living Geography deserve better than that, so I got in touch with Beck Lockwood, the press officer at Birmingham University, who were involved in the piece, and she sent me through a set of diagrams which are big enough to read much clearer, and various other diagrams as well as the article itself. At the risk of opening myself up to lots of requests, let me know if you'd like to see more.
I also checked the 'A' level book that I edited for CUP, and we are not guilty of including such a diagram, which is good to know.
Here's the main edited diagrams that are referred to in the article ...
Click for bigger - it's very nice... and could be used from now on perhaps instead of the existing ones. I like the wider range of landscapes it shows.
Human Water appropriation
Diagrams taken from Abbott et al (2019)
Used with permission
I also checked the 'A' level book that I edited for CUP, and we are not guilty of including such a diagram, which is good to know.
Here's the main edited diagrams that are referred to in the article ...
Click for bigger - it's very nice... and could be used from now on perhaps instead of the existing ones. I like the wider range of landscapes it shows.
Human Water appropriation
Diagrams taken from Abbott et al (2019)
Used with permission
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