Climate Change Urbanization And Water Resources

This book discusses resilient urban water resources management in the context of climate change and ongoing urbanization. Twelve cities worldwide representing different climates and growth stages serve as case studies. Using these case cities, this book first identifies the main water issues, including water demand, floods, and droughts, in relation to the historical development of each city, investigates current strategies for dealing with climate-related water hazards, and explores potential adaptive strategies. The authors draw some common lessons by comparing and contrasting these case studies while acknowledging place-based unique adaptation strategies.

This book discusses different aspects of water resources, ranging from hydrology and modeling to management and policy responses. Climate changes and the uncertainty of future hydrological regimes make sustainable water resources management a difficult task, requiring a set of approaches that address climate variability and change. The book focuses on three main themes: hydrological changes, adaptive decision-making for water resources, and institutional analysis and risk management. It discusses the applications and limitations of climate change models and scenarios related to precipitation projection, which predicts to the future availability of water. It also offers interesting examples from around the globe to describe the policy options for dealing with climate change. Addressing emerging issues that need to be resolved and techniques that can be applied for sustainable climate-change-sensitive water resources protection and management, this practical, state-of-the-art reference book is a valuable resource for researchers, students and professionals interested in sustainable water resources management in a changing climate.

The book explores the geo-chemical, physical, social and economic impacts of climate change on water supplies. It contains examples and case studies from a wide range of countries, and addresses the need to promote sustainable water use across the world.

In response to the increasing urbanization, advances in the science of urban hydrology have improved urban water system management, creating more livable cities in which public safety and health, as well as the environment, are protected. The ultimate goal of urban water management is to mimic the hydrological cycle prior to urbanization. On top of urbanization, climate change, which has been demonstrated to alter the hydrological cycle in all respects, has introduced additional challenges to managing urban water systems. To mitigate and adapt to urbanization under a changing climate, understanding key hydrologic components should expand to include complex issues brought forth by climate change. Thus, effective and efficient measures can be formulated. This Special Issue of Water presents a variety of research papers that span a range of spatial and temporal scales of relevance in different societies’ efforts in adapting to the eminent changes in climate and the continuous changes in the landscape. From mitigating water quality in permeable pavements and bioretention swales to understanding changes in groundwater recharge in large regions, this Special Issue examines the state-of-the-art in sustainable urban design for adaptation and resiliency.

This book aims to come up with views to address the queries of planners, policymakers, and general people for water resources management under uncertainty of climate change, including examples from Asia and Europe with successful adaptive measures to change the challenge of climate change into opportunities. The availability of clean water is a major global challenge for the future due to a rapidly growing population and urbanization where further stress in water resources is expected due to the impact of climate change. The wide range of impacts includes for example changes in hydrology, moisture availability, spatial and temporal variations in magnitude of stream flow, and dwindling of water levels with adverse effect on wetlands and ecosystem. As a consequence, water management has become a serious issue and was identified as a global societal challenge, and climate change forecasting has become one of the key issues in recent research on sustainable water resources management.

This unique book brings together high-quality research contributions on ecological aspects of urbanization, water quality concerns in an urban environment, and climate change issues with a strong Indian focus under one umbrella. It includes several case studies that discuss urban water management, particularly highlighting the quality aspects. Urbanization is an ecological disturbance that the modern world accepts as essential in the absence of a better alternative that could provide an equal level of comfort. The prohibitive costs of eco-friendly production technologies are forcing the developing world to generate industrial waste that is detrimental to the environment. At the same time, the availability of adequate fresh water is another challenge for our climate-change impacted world. The scientific community is, therefore, searching for ways towards ecologically sustainable urban development. Discussing all these issues, this book offers a useful guide for academicians, researchers, practicing engineers, and managers dealing with diverse water-related problems in urban areas.

Today’s urban water managers are faced with an unprecedented set of issues that call for a different approach to urban water management. These include the urgent changes needed to respond to climate change, population growth, growing resource constraints, and rapidly increasing global urbanization. Not only are these issues difficult to address, but they are facing us in an environment that is increasingly unpredictable and complex. Although innovative, new tools are now available to water professionals to address these challenges, solving the water problems of tomorrow cannot be done by the water professionals alone. Instead, the city of the future, whether in the developed or developing world, must integrate water management planning and operations with other city services to meet the needs of humans and the environment in a dramatically superior manner. Water Sensitive Cities has been developed from selected papers from 2009 Singapore Water Week “Planning for Sustainable Solutions” and also papers taken from other IWA events. It pulls together material that supports the water professionals’ need for useful and up-to-date material. Authors: Carol Howe, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands Cynthia Mitchell, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Global change possesses serious challenges for water managers and scientists. In mountain areas, where water supplies for half of the world population originate, climate and hydrologic models are still subject to considerable uncertainty. And yet, critical decisions have to be taken to ensure adequate and safe water supplies to billions of people, millions of farmers and industries, without further deteriorating rivers and water bodies. While global warming is known to cause glaciers’ retreat and reduced snow packs around the world, it is not clear that mountain discharge will be lower. What is widely recognised is that water management must be adapted to accommodate significant regime changes. However, this inevitably involves managing transboundary rivers, adding further complexity to putting principles in practice. This book takes global warming and the importance of mountain areas in world water resources as the starting point. First, it provides detailed reviews of the processes going on in several rivers systems and world regions in Europe (Rhône and Ebro), North America (Canadian Rockies, Western US and Mexico), the Middle East (Jordan), Africa (Tunisia, Kenya and South Africa). These contexts provide case studies and examples that show the difficulties and potential for adaptation to global change. Land-use, economics, numerous modeling approaches are some of the cross-cutting issues covered in the chapters. The volume also includes the views of water practitioners, with two chapters authored by members of the US-Canada International Joint Commission, an industrialist from Western Canada and an environmental leader in Spain. By combining a rich set of contexts and approaches, the volume succeeds in offering a view of the global challenges faced by water agencies, international donors and researchers around the world. A case is made in some chapters to seek adaptive strategies rather than trying to reduce or control resources variability. This requires factoring in land-use, social and economic aspects, especially in developing countries. Another conclusion is that complex problems can and must be posed and negotiated with the help of models, mapping techniques and science-based facts. However complex these may be, there are ways to translate them to easily interpretable and visualisations of alternative scenarios and courses of action. This book provides numerous examples of the potential of such approaches to draft environmental programmes solve transboundary disputes and reduce the economic consequences of droughts and climate instability.