Adaptive And Integrated Water Management

Sustainable water management is a key environmental challenge of the 21st century. This book presents the very latest studies, methods and innovations for managing our water resources from the first International Conference on Adaptive and Integrated Water Management, held in November 2007 in Basel, Switzerland. The book addresses a wide interdisciplinary audience of scientists and professionals from academia, industry, and those involved in policy making.

"Provides a broad overview of the most important and emerging concepts, frameworks, methods and tools in the areas of integrated water resource management (IWRM) and adaptive management (AM)."--

Recent discussions among scientists and policy-makers have highlighted that knowledge generated by many research and demonstration projects is not reaching policymakers in an efficient way. Conversely, the consideration of research results by the policy making community is not straightforward, and difficulties arise in integrating the latest research developments in legislation. The difficulty is enhanced by the fact that the policy-making community is not defining its role as "client" sufficiently well and the dialogue and communication channels are far from ideal to ensure an efficient flow of information. An increasing number of experts consider that improvements could be achieved through the development of a "science-policy interface" so that R&D results are synthesised in a way to efficiently feed policy implementation and that short, medium and long term research needs may be identified. This book examines the issue of integrating science into policy, with an emphasis on water system knowledge and related policies. An important feature of the book is the discussion of science-policy interfacing needs, illustrated by examples from authors from different countries in relation to water system management. This publication is timely in that the science-policy interfacing is now identified as a key challenge worldwide with regard to integrated water resource management, and therefore the book will be of great interest to scientists, water managers and stakeholders. Readers will also benefit from a better understanding of the needs, benefits and drawbacks of an established transfer mechanism of scientific outputs to policies.

The complexity of current water resource management poses many challenges. Water managers need to solve a range of interrelated water dilemmas, such as balancing water quantity and quality, flooding, drought, maintaining biodiversity and ecological functions and services, in a context where human beliefs, actions and values play a central role. Furthermore, the growing uncertainties of global climate change and the long term implications of management actions make the problems even more difficult. This book explains the benefits, outcomes and lessons learned from adaptive water management (AWM). In essence AWM is a way of responding to uncertainty by designing policy measures which are provisional and incremental, subject to subsequent modification in response to environmental change and other variables. Included are illustrative case studies from seven river basins from across Europe, West Asia and Africa: the Elbe, Rhine, Guadiana, Tisza, Orange, Nile and Amudarya. These exemplify the key challenges of adaptive water management, especially when rivers cross national boundaries, creating additional problems of governance.

This Open Access book, building on research initiated by scholars from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development (CHGD) and ICOMOS Netherlands, presents multidisciplinary research that connects water to heritage. Through twenty-one chapters it explores landscapes, cities, engineering structures and buildings from around the world. It describes how people have actively shaped the course, form and function of water for human settlement and the development of civilizations, establishing socio-economic structures, policies and cultures; a rich world of narratives, laws and practices; and an extensive network of infrastructure, buildings and urban form. The book is organized in five thematic sections that link practices of the past to the design of the present and visions of the future: part I discusses drinking water management; part II addresses water use in agriculture; part III explores water management for land reclamation and defense; part IV examines river and coastal planning; and part V focuses on port cities and waterfront regeneration. Today, the many complex systems of the past are necessarily the basis for new systems that both preserve the past and manage water today: policy makers and designers can work together to recognize and build on the traditional knowledge and skills that old structure embody. This book argues that there is a need for a common agenda and an integrated policy that addresses the preservation, transformation and adaptive reuse of historic water-related structures. Throughout, it imagines how such efforts will help us develop sustainable futures for cities, landscapes and bodies of water.

This book explores a new framework of Adaptive Water Management (AWM) for evaluating existing approaches in urban water management. It highlights the need to adopt multidisciplinary strategies in water management while providing an in-depth understanding of institutional interactions amongst different water related sectors. The key characteristics of AWM i.e. polycentric governance, organisational flexibility and public participation are investigated and described through a critical review of the relevant literature. The book presents an empirical case study undertaken in a selected developing-country city to investigate the potential gaps between the current water management approaches and possible implementation of AWM. Feasibility of AWM operations is examined in an environment surrounded by established water management structure with centralised governance and an institutional process based on technical flexibility. The key elements of AWM performance are (re)structured and transformed into decision support systems. Multi criteria decision models are developed to facilitate quantification and visualization of the elements derived from the case study, which is involved with water companies and water consumers. The book describes how the concept of AWM, along with structuring suitable decision support systems, can be developed and applied to developing-country cities. The book highlights the barriers for applying the AWM strategies that include established centralised decision making, bureaucratic interactions with external organisations, lack of organisational flexibility within the institutions, and lack of recognition of public role in water management. The findings outline that despite the lack of adaptability in the current water management in the case study, as an example of developing countries, there are positive attitudes among water professionals and the public towards adaptability through public-institutional participation.

Better water management will be crucial if we are to meet many of the key challenges of this century - feeding the worlds growing population and reducing poverty, meeting water and sanitation needs, protecting vital ecosystems, all while adapting to climate change. The approach known as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is widely recognized as the best way forward, but is poorly understood, even within the water sector. Since a core IWRM principle is that good water management must involve the water users, the understanding and involvement of other sectors is critical for success. There is thus an urgent need for practical guidance, for both water and development professionals, based on real world examples, rather than theoretical constructs. That is what this book provides. Using case studies, the book illustrates how better water management, guided by the IWRM approach, has helped to meet a wide range of sustainable development goals. It does this by considering practical examples, looking at how IWRM has contributed, at different scales, from very local, village-level experiences to reforms at national level and beyond to cases involving trans-boundary river basins. Using these on-the-ground experiences, from both developed and developing countries in five continents, the book provides candid and practical lessons for policy-makers, donors, and water and development practitioners worldwide, looking at how IWRM principles were applied, what worked, and, equally important, what didn‘t work, and why. Published with the Global Water Partnership