America’s Western water crisis is now newsworthy on a global level, and the Colorado River is in the crosshairs. The Colorado River is the most comprehensive look at this challenged resource that supplies drinking water to forty million Americans and supports five percent of the country’s GDP.

While acclaimed photographer Pete McBride has covered water worldwide and been dubbed a “freshwater hero” by National Geographic, he now brings us home to his deepest passion: saving his backyard river, the Colorado. For two decades, McBride has documented the Colorado River, from source to sea and always with a camera in hand.

Through McBride’s photography and his own words, as well as essays on climate change and river overuse, we witness the stark reality of our water crisis but also the remarkable beauty and resilience of this ephemeral source of life.