About this book
Water is newsworthy: there is, or will be, a world water crisis. Aggravated by climate change, we are approaching the limits of human exploitation of freshwater resources, notably in growing essential food. The complexities and uncertainties associated with improving our management of fresh water take the potential remedies out of the hands of simple, local, hard engineering and into much larger units - the basin, the ecosystem and the global context, and also require longer term perspectives.
The third edition follows the same structure as its predecessors, presenting the historical and scientific backgrounds to land-water interactions and establishing the links with development processes and policies. Throughout, its two major messages are that our new philosophy should be one of 'humans in the ecosystem' and that the guidance from science, being uncertain and contested, must be operationalized in a participatory system of governance based on participation.
Following a review of progress towards these elements in the developed world, the international case studies update the situation in the developing world following the Millennium Development Goals, our new emphasis on poverty and on global food supplies. This book covers the multitude of scientific research findings, development of 'tools' and spatial/temporal scale challenges which have emerged in the last decade. Tensions are highlighted in the current and future role of large dams, country studies are retained (and considerably updated) and development contexts are explored in greater depth as a dividing line in capacity to cope with land and water stress.
'Technical issues' have been expanded to cover major droughts, environmental flows and the restoration of rivers and wetlands. A separate chapter picks up these themes under terms of their relationship with uncertainty and the widespread perception that a new ethos of adaptive management is needed in the water sector. For students of geography, environmental science, hydrology, and development studies this innovative edition provides a reasoned, academic basis of evidence for sustainable, adaptive management of rivers and related large-scale ecosystems using more than 600 new sources. It will also prove invaluable for lecturers and practitioners.
Contents
1: A 'World Water Crisis'? The History and Current Trajectory of Water Management 1.1. Hydraulic Cultures and Religious Codes: Management in Advance of Science 1.2 The Rise of Hydraulics and Hydrology 1.3 Monks, Mills and Mines: Coordination but Abuse in England 1.4 Urbanisation and Industrialization: A Steep Deterioration 1.5 Sustainability, the Current 'crisis' and the Challenges of the Future 2: The River Basin (Eco)System: Biophysical Dynamics, 'Natural' and 'Compromised' 2.1 Flow of Water and Transport of Sediment 2.2 Channel Morphology: Indicating Process and State? 2.3 Towards the 'Fluvial Hydrosystem': Floodplains 2.4 Sediment Delivery at the Basin Scale: Sources, Pathways and Targets 2.5 Incorporating the Basin Sediment System in Ecosystem Management 3: Land-Water Interactions: The Evidence Base for Catchment Planning and Management 3.1 Vegetation, Soils and Hydrology: A Humid Climate Perspective 3.2 Groundwater Exploitation and Protection 3.3 The Devil of the Detail: Runoff Modifications in Developed River Basins 3.4 Land and Water: Off-site Impacts on Water Quality and Biota 3.5 Conclusions: Towards Water Body 'Pressures' 4: Managing Land, Water and Rivers in the Developed World: An International Survey 4.1 Development and the River Basin 4.2 River Basin Management in the USA 4.3 Canadian River Basin Management 4.4 Australia: Lessons Learned Late on a Settler Legacy 4.5 New Zealand: Resource Management Conditioned by Hazard 4.6 Reflections: National Priorities in the Developed World 5: River Basins and Development: Sample Trajectories 5.1 New Millennium, New Tensions: Incorporating Poverty and Health in the Water Agenda 5.2 Characteristics of Water Development Projects in the Twentieth Century: 'gigantism' 5.3 A Development Focus: Food, Power and Trade in Drylands 5.4 River Basin Management in Iran: The Zayandeh Rud 5.5 The Nile: A Definitive Case of Hydropolitics 5.6 River Basin Development Authorities: Experience Elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa 5.7 South Africa: A Unique Water Management Experiment 5.8 Land-Use Writ Large? Himalayan Headwaters and the GBM 5.9 Is the Dam-based Megaproject a Thing of the Past? 5.10 Development and Rivers: Broad Trends 6: Technical Issues in River Basin Management 6.1 Soil Erosion 6.2 A Stressed Global Food Supply -- 'Water for Food, Water for Life' 6.3 Dams and Development: Sedimentation, Environmental Flows, Impact Assessment 6.4 Conservation and Restoration of River Channels and Wetlands 6.5 Climatic Change and River Basin Management 6.6 Conclusion 7: Institutional Issues in River Basin Management: Stasis and Change in England and Wales 7.1 Delivering IWRM/IRBM Within Contexts of Rights and Governance 7.2 Can Basin Authorities Work? From TVA to CMAs and RBDs 7.3 Case Study: The Evolution of Basin Management Institutions in England and Wales 7.4 A Flood-prone Nation: Land Drainage Leads the Way 7.5 Basin-scale Regulation: Water Resources and Pollution 7.6 Private or Public? Economics and Environment 7.7 An Environment Agency for Sustainable Development and the WFD 7.8 Integration With Land-use Planning: Flooding Leads Again 7.9 The Spotlight of Sustainable Development 7.10 River Basin Institutions and Developing Nations 7.11 Institutions for International River Basin Management 7.12 Sustainability and Subsidiarity: Scale-sensitive Institutions/Organizations Which Can Plan Basin Development 8: Sustainable River Basin Management With Uncertain Knowledge 8.1 A 'Watery Form of Sustainability' 8.2 Science in the 'New Environmental Age' and the 'Risk Society' 8.3 Uncertain 'Science Speaks to Power' 8.4 Uncertain Science and Land-water Management: The Early Evidence 8.5 Uncertain Science and Land-water Management: Where now? 8.6 Implementation: Land-use Controls in River Basins -- The Case of UK Forestry 8.7 Broadening Horizons: New Knowledge: People Speak to Science 8.8 'Walk your Watershed': 'catchment health' -- A Case for Acupuncture? 9: Adaptive Land and Water Management: Through Participation and Social Learning to Hydropolitical Decisions? 9.1 'Big Themes' for Future Land and Water Development 9.2 Scale-sensitive Governance, Information Flows and Social Learning 9.3 Experiences of Public Participation: Stakeholders and 'Joe Public' 9.4 The Cauldron of Hydropolitics and the Spell of Economics 9.5 Formalities of Adaptive Management Postscript Globalised Water: Will Poverty, Trade and Energy Issues Override Basin-scale Management? Poverty, Water Poverty and Trading out Water Stress Will 'Virtual Water' Work? Water and Energy: Fuelling Desalination, Hydro-electricity and Irrigating Biofuels! The Ultimate Challenge: Ecosystem Management Under Uncertainty, Ignorance and Surprises The Aral Sea -- Righting the Wrongs?
Customer Reviews
Biography
Geography Department, Newcastle University, UK
