Hydrology And Water Law Bridging The Gap

With "integrated water resources management" (IWRM) the current buzzword in international circles, the real question is: how to operationalise a truly multidisciplinary approach to the effective management of shared watercourses. Based largely on the actual experience of HELP (Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy), the overall aim of the book is to produce a series of case studies from around the world (from the Aral Sea to Zimbabwe) that demonstrate how the "gaps" between hydrology, water law and management are actually bridged in practice. Is hydrological data relevant and used in the formulation of national and international water law and policy? Cases cited include examples of where this has happened and been successful or unsuccessful and where this has not happened and led to problems. This will act as a guide to how future water laws and polices can be made more effective via the use of accurate and up to date hydrological information.

This book analyses water allocation law and policy in New Zealand and offers a comparative analysis with Australia. In New Zealand, it is generally accepted that water allocation law has failed to be adequately addressed and New Zealand is now faced with the problem of over-allocation in many catchments. In comparison, Australia has extensive experience in reforming its water law and policy over the last 20 years. This book provides a comparative and critical analysis of the lessons that New Zealand can learn from the Australian experience and offers guidance for the improvement of water allocation outcomes in New Zealand. Starting with the background of water allocation law and policy in New Zealand, the book traces the evolution of legal policies, including the 1967 Water and Soil Conservation Act and the 1991 Resource Management Act, and examines the role they have played in current water allocation issues. The book situates these findings within global challenges, such as the impact of climate change, and the global scarcity of and increasing demand for freshwater resources. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars researching water law and policy, natural resource management and environmental law more broadly. It will also be of use to policy makers and professionals involved in developing and implementing water allocation laws and policies.

Integrated Water Management (IWM) deals with the planning and management of water resources by integrating the different issues involved, including ecological, economic, technical legislative, and transboundary. This book offers a general framework for IWM. It includes both the different environmental problems that affect the very different ecosystems and the main methodologies able to face the problem of IWM.

Water is an increasingly critical issue at the forefront of global policy change, management and planning. There are growing concerns about water as a renewable resource, its availability for a wide range of users, aquatic ecosystem health, and global issues relating to climate change, water security, water trading and water ethics. This handbook provides the most comprehensive reference ever published on water resource issues. It brings together multiple disciplines to understand and help resolve problems of water quality and scarcity from a global perspective. Its case studies and 'foundation' chapters will be greatly valued by students, researchers and professionals involved in water resources, hydrology, governance and public policy, law, economics, geography and environmental studies.

The Collected Courses of the Xiamen Academy of International Law contain the Summer Courses taught at the Xiamen Academy of International Law by highly qualified international legal professionals.

The science–policy interface is critical to the design and implementation of water policies. In theory, scientists provide policy makers with robust facts and data that can help guide decision making, and lessons from the political economy of reforms can push scientific boundaries further to trigger further research for wise solutions. While evidence-based policy is obviously desirable, in practice such a connection is not always straightforward. Another assumption behind the science–policy gap is the discrepancy between scientists and policy makers in terms of culture, process, timing, language and expected outcome. This book tries to reconcile this discrepancy through a multi-stakeholder approach to authoring its different articles. This joint initiative between the OECD – particularly its Water Governance Initiative – and the International Water Resources Association seeks to provide a canvas for grounding water policy in science, and vice versa. The objective of this book, devoted to the OECD Principles on Water Governance, is to use the OECD Principles as a common thread across the articles to draw lessons from theoretical work and practical experiences in water governance reforms; but also to only feature papers authored by groups of diverse stakeholders from different institutional backgrounds. This book was originally published as a special issue of Water International.

Legal Perspectives on Bridging Science and Policy deals with the interaction of science and policy from a legal perspective. Expert contributors outline the role of law in water management and suggest solutions to make laws flexible and adaptive to changes in scientific knowledge and environmental, social and economic conditions. Each chapter addresses the topic with a different focus and offers an in-depth analysis of legal challenges related to the creation of interdisciplinary bridges, clarifying how science may be assimilated into decision-making processes and can thereby contribute to build evidence-based policies. Legal Perspectives on Bridging Science and Policy will be of great interest to scholars of water law, water governance and environmental law. This book was originally published in the journal Water International, as a special issue prepared by the International Association for Water Law (known as AIDA from its Spanish acronym https://www.aida-waterlaw.org), gathering selected papers dealing with law and governance from the XVI World Water Congress of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) (2017).

Implementing the goal of sustainable development has long been heralded as the means by which the needs of both present and future generations can be met. However, finding a long-term balance between economic, social and environmental interests, the basic tenet of sustainable development, has proved largely illusive in practice. This book shows that while a number of legal frameworks to help promote the goal of sustainable development have been proposed at the international level they fail to fully capture the essence of sustainable development and international law's capacity to support its implementation. The book offers a critical analysis of past attempts to develop legal frameworks for promoting sustainable development at the international level, and advocates for a fresh approach based on lessons learnt from the law of international watercourses. The book is divided into four sections. The first section includes an overview of the topic area and an understanding of international law. In section two the book explores the meaning of sustainable development and considers the term's relationship with international law. A detailed analysis of how the law of international watercourses seeks to reconcile competing economic, social and environmental interests is carried out in section three. The book concludes with a section advocating the need for a fresh approach to international law and sustainable development and offering the foundations for this approach based on lessons learnt from the law of international watercourses.