Decision Making in Water Resources Policy and Management


Book Description

Decision-Making in Water Resource Policy and Management: An Australian Perspective presents the latest information in developing new decision-making processes. Topics covered include key aspects of water resources planning, recent water resource policy changes in irrigation, urban, and environmental considerations, the evolution of a water market, a number of case studies that provide real examples of improved decision-making, transfer of the Australian experience overseas, and challenges for the future. Many countries are experiencing major water scarcity problems which will likely intensify with the continued impacts of climate change. In response to this challenge, there is increased worldwide focus on the development of more sustainable and integrated water resource policies. The Australian experience over the past three decades has led to major improvements in the decision-making processes in water resources policy and management, particularly in response to drought and climate change, providing a great model on which other nations can use and adapt. This information is essential to early to mid-career practitioners engaged in policy, planning and operational roles in all fields of water resource policy and management, and catchment management. - Summarizes key results from three decades of changes in Australian water resource policy - Illustrates how Australian knowledge is being used in other countries and how this might be expanded - Provides international practitioners with real examples of where and how the Australian knowledge is assisting in other situations




Water Resource Systems Planning and Management


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. This revised, updated textbook presents a systems approach to the planning, management, and operation of water resources infrastructure in the environment. Previously published in 2005 by UNESCO and Deltares (Delft Hydraulics at the time), this new edition, written again with contributions from Jery R. Stedinger, Jozef P. M. Dijkman, and Monique T. Villars, is aimed equally at students and professionals. It introduces readers to the concept of viewing issues involving water resources as a system of multiple interacting components and scales. It offers guidelines for initiating and carrying out water resource system planning and management projects. It introduces alternative optimization, simulation, and statistical methods useful for project identification, design, siting, operation and evaluation and for studying post-planning issues. The authors cover both basin-wide and urban water issues and present ways of identifying and evaluating alternatives for addressing multiple-purpose and multi-objective water quantity and quality management challenges. Reinforced with cases studies, exercises, and media supplements throughout, the text is ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in water resource planning and management as well as for practicing planners and engineers in the field.




Water Management in Arid and Semi-arid Regions


Book Description

Water deficiency in many arid and semi-arid regions in Southern Europe is becoming a major constraint for economic welfare and sustainable regional development. These regions are characterised by high spatial and temporal imbalances of water demand and supply, seasonal water uses, inadequate water resources and poor institutional water management. The aim of this book is to formulate appropriate strategies and guidelines for water management necessary for the formulation and implementation of integrated sustainable management of water resources. Lessons are learned from various case studies, which examine competing water use patterns, compare governance structures and how these have evolved in response to scarcity, and structural and non-structural instruments to address water deficiency. Water Management in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions will appeal to policymakers in relevant countries as well as to scholars and researchers of environmental studies and economics.




Confronting the Nation's Water Problems


Book Description

In order to confront the increasingly severe water problems faced by all parts of the country, the United States needs to make a new commitment to research on water resources. A new mechanism is needed to coordinate water research currently fragmented among nearly 20 federal agencies. Given the competition for water among farmers, communities, aquatic ecosystems and other users-as well as emerging challenges such as climate change and the threat of waterborne diseases-Confronting the Nation's Water Problems concludes that an additional $70 million in federal funding should go annually to water research. Funding should go specifically to the areas of water demand and use, water supply augmentation, and other institutional research topics. The book notes that overall federal funding for water research has been stagnant in real terms for the past 30 years and that the portion dedicated to research on water use and social science topics has declined considerably.




Urban Water Management for Future Cities


Book Description

This book features expert contributions on key sustainability aspects of urban water management in Chinese agglomerations. Both technical and institutional pathways to sustainable urban water management are developed on the basis of a broad, interdisciplinary problem analysis.




Climate Change and Water Resources Management


Book Description

Many challenges, including climate change, face the Nation¿s water managers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided estimates of how climate may change, but more understanding of the processes driving the changes, the sequences of the changes, and the manifestation of these global changes at different scales could be beneficial. Since the changes will likely affect fundamental drivers of the hydrological cycle, climate change may have a large impact on water resources and water resources managers. The purpose of this interagency report is to explore strategies to improve water management by tracking, anticipating, and responding to climate change. Charts and tables.




Swimming Upstream


Book Description

In recent years, water resource management in the United States has begun a shift away from top-down, government agency-directed decision processes toward a collaborative approach of negotiation and problem solving. Rather than focusing on specific pollution sources or specific areas within a watershed, this new process considers the watershed as a whole, seeking solutions to an interrelated set of social, economic, and environmental problems. Decision making involves face-to-face negotiations among a variety of stakeholders, including federal, state, and local agencies, landowners, environmentalists, industries, and researchers. Swimming Upstream analyzes the collaborative approach by providing a historical overview of watershed management in the United States and a normative and empirical conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating the process. The bulk of the book looks at a variety of collaborative watershed planning projects across the country. It first examines the applications of relatively short-term collaborative strategies in Oklahoma and Texas, exploring issues of trust and legitimacy. It then analyzes factors affecting the success of relatively long-term collaborative partnerships in the National Estuary Program and in 76 watersheds in Washington and California. Bringing analytical rigor to a field that has been dominated by practitioners' descriptive accounts, Swimming Upstream makes a vital contribution to public policy, public administration, and environmental management.




Renewing Local Planning to Face Climate Change in the Tropics


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book aims to inspire decision makers and practitioners to change their approach to climate planning in the tropics through the application of modern technologies for characterizing local climate and tracking vulnerability and risk, and using decision-making tools. Drawing on 16 case studies conducted mainly in the Caribbean, Central America, Western and Eastern Africa, and South East Asia it is shown how successful integration of traditional and modern knowledge can enhance disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change in the tropics. The case studies encompass both rural and urban settings and cover different scales: rural communities, cities, and regions. In addition, the book looks to the future of planning by addressing topics of major importance, including residual risk integration in local development plans, damage insurance and the potential role of climate vulnerability reduction credits. In many regions of the tropics, climate planning is growing but has still very low quality. This book identifies the weaknesses and proposes effective solutions.




Introduction To The Economics Of Water Resources


Book Description

A concise treatment of water-resource economics. Based upon political economy perspectives, it draws upon a range of case-studies - Third- World, developed world, and former communist countries - to cover many issues. There is guidance on




Agricultural Water Management


Book Description

This report contains a collection of papers from a workshopâ€"Strengthening Science-Based Decision-Making for Sustainable Management of Scarce Water Resources for Agricultural Production, held in Tunisia. Participants, including scientists, decision makers, representatives of non-profit organizations, and a farmer, came from the United States and several countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The papers examined constraints to agricultural production as it relates to water scarcity; focusing on 1) the state of the science regarding water management for agricultural purposes in the Middle East and North Africa 2) how science can be applied to better manage existing water supplies to optimize the domestic production of food and fiber. The cross-cutting themes of the workshop were the elements or principles of science-based decision making, the role of the scientific community in ensuring that science is an integral part of the decision making process, and ways to improve communications between scientists and decision makers.