Sandra Postel

Sandra Postel directs the independent Global Water Policy Project, and lectures, writes and consults on global water issues. In 2010 she was appointed Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society, where she serves as lead water expert for the Society’s freshwater efforts. Sandra is co-creator of Change the Course, the national freshwater conservation and restoration campaign being pioneered by National Geographic and its partners.

During 2000-2008, Sandra was visiting senior lecturer in Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College, and late in that term directed the college’s Center for the Environment. From 1988 until 1994, she was vice president for research at the Worldwatch Institute. Sandra is a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment, and in 2002 was named one of the Scientific American 50, an award recognizing contributions to science and technology.

In 1992 Postel authored Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity, which now appears in eight languages and was the basis for a PBS documentary that aired in 1997. She is also author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last? (1999) and co-author of Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature (2003). Her article “Troubled Waters” was selected for inclusion in the 2001 edition of Best American Science and Nature Writing. Sandra has authored well over 100 articles for popular, scholarly, and news publications, including ScienceScientific AmericanForeign PolicyThe New York Times, and The Washington Post.

water sampling

Shaping a Safe and Sustainable Planetary Water Policy – A MAHB Dialogue with Sandra Postel, Director, Global Water Policy Project

We talk about water as a “right,” but it is really the planet’s greatest gift. A gift to be shared with all of life.

March 11, 2021

Texas Ranches Manage Cattle to Improve Habitat and Watershed Health

Few animals get as bad a rap these days as cattle do. They are blamed for soil erosion, water depletion, overgrazed rangelands, greenhouse gas emissions, and, when eaten, human heart disease. Often missing from such indictments of the mooing, tail-wagging, and, yes, methane-emitting bovine, however, is our role. How we choose to manage cattle determines their environmental impact, not the animals themselves.

November 3, 2017

Preparing for Floods, Droughts and Water Shortages by Working with, Rather than Against, Nature

If disasters related to droughts, floods, and other extreme weather seem more common globally, it’s because they are: according to a United Nations study, between 2005 and 2014, an average of 335 weather-related disasters occurred per year, nearly twice the level recorded from 1985 to 1995.

October 17, 2017

Native Americans and Conservationists Collaborate to Return Vital Flow to the Rio Grande

Earlier this year when I learned about an innovative idea spearheaded by Audubon New Mexico to return some flow to the Rio Grande at its driest time of year, I felt a surge of hope for the river and the life it supports.

October 3, 2016

How Smarter Irrigation Might Save Rare Mussels and Ease a Water War

It’s clear that restoring healthy flows to the Flint River and its tributaries will not be easy. The people of Georgia and the lower Flint must decide if they want to take action to save the diversity of life in their streams.

August 26, 2016

Society

Along a Desert River, A New Breed of Rancher

Schwennesen is among a new cadre of farmers and ranchers that brings a more holistic, ecological way of thinking to land management.

June 6, 2016

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