Deep Blue is a refreshing work. Anthropogenic global climate change is leading to rising sea levels, increasing drought and storm conditions around the world. Water quality and availability are the focus of increased activism and conflict in and between many countries. Water-related religious activities are gaining prominence in many cultures. Environmentalists, however ‘deep green’ they are, have realized that without water of the right quality and quantity the green mantle of the land is frighteningly fragile. All these are good reasons for an engagement with water. What this book adds is a timely and refreshing immersion in the question of what motivates people to pursue water-related issues and participate in water-related actions. Sylvie Shaw and Andrew Francis have brought together a group of contributors who complement each other's work in such a way that even their differences of opinion and approach greatly enhance the value of the whole work.

The contributors to this excellent volume offer a range of perspectives on and engagements with water: oceans, seas, rivers, pools; drinking water, surfing waves, being watery, living in water, being alien in water; water related to respectfully; water abused relentlessly; human intimacy with water; human alterity from water. Our moistness is as vital but as temporary and brief as our lives. After our bodies lose air, they lose water; all that remains is dust. We are earthlings. Sometimes we act as proverbial clods and sods (foolish and abusive) towards our life-givers: earth and air as well as water.