英语听力：自然百科 神奇水世界 Water-15

 They could not lose. Resistance movements started. They would take over places like this and opened the sluice¹ gate allowing the water to pour back down into Owens Valley. Irregularly they dynamited² the aqueduct. But the city rebuilt it and the game of cat and mouse continued for  three more dynamite-filled years. Eventually the place calmed down with a shoot-to-kill policy in the rebellion reservoir. The city had won.

 

Today the Los Angeles Aqueduct is just part of a giant network of pipes and aqueducts all serving one of the world great cities.

 

But back in the Owens Valley, the lake is all but vanished and the river is barely a trickle³. The story of Owens Valley is not an isolated⁴ case. Today there are conflicts over water taking place all around  the world.

 

Israel, the Palestanian, Serian, Jordan dispute access to River Jordan.

 

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia quarrel over the waters of the Nile.

 

On the Indus River, Indian and Pakistanian are in conflict over dams built in the  river's tributaries⁵. And these are only some more well known examples.

 

Ten thousand years ago, we lived at the whelm of the unpredictable water circle. Since then we have harnessed the power of rivers to advance our civilizations. We have extracted ground water from depths of the most unlikely places. and we have learned to redirect and store water on a massive scale. Today we have unprecedented⁶ power over the planet's water.

But one thing hasn't changed: There are still only a finite amount of water on earth. It seems to me that water is the Achilles'heel of our modern civilization. It's the one resource more than another with the protential to limit our ambitions. The foudermental limits of the water circle are still there. But the lesson of history is that the most successful civilizations learn to adapt to those limits.

 

So the problem is more with us. And that prospect⁷ may find you gloomy or like me more optimistic, but either way, at least the future is in our hand.

1 sluice   

n.水闸

参考例句：

• We opened the sluice and the water poured in.我们打开闸门，水就涌了进来。
• They regulate the flow of water by the sluice gate.他们用水闸门控制水的流量。

2 dynamited   

v.（尤指用于采矿的）甘油炸药( dynamite的过去式和过去分词 )；会引起轰动的人[事物]

参考例句：

• Saboteurs dynamited the bridge. 破坏者炸毁了桥梁。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Saboteurs dynamited the dam. 破坏者炸毁了堤坝。 来自互联网

3 trickle   

vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散

参考例句：

• The stream has thinned down to a mere trickle.这条小河变成细流了。
• The flood of cars has now slowed to a trickle.汹涌的车流现在已经变得稀稀拉拉。

4 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

5 tributaries   

n. 支流

参考例句：

• In such areas small tributaries or gullies will not show. 在这些地区，小的支流和冲沟显示不出来。
• These tributaries are subsequent streams which erode strike valley. 这些支流系即为蚀出走向谷的次生河。

6 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

7 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。