Land Use And Water Resources

'Blue Revolution upturns some environmental applecarts - not for the hell of it, but so we can manage our environment better.' Fred Pearce, New Scientist This updated and revised edition of The Blue Revolution provides further evidence of the need to integrate land management decision-making into the process of integrated water resources management. It presents the key issues involved in finding the balance between the competing demands for land and water: for food and other forms of economic production, for sustaining livelihoods, and for conservation, amenity, recreation and the requirements of the environment. It also advocates the means and methodologies for addressing them. A new chapter, 'Policies, Power and Perversity,' describes the perverse outcomes that can result from present, often myth-based, land and water policies which do not consider these land and water interactions. New research and case studies involving ILWRM concepts are presented for the Panama Canal catchments and in relation to afforestation proposals for the UK Midlands.

This book provides an overview of facts, theories and methods from hydrology, geology, geophysics, law, ethics, economics, ecology, engineering, sociology, diplomacy and many other disciplines with relevance for concepts and practice of water resources management. It provides comprehensive, but also critical reading material for all communities involved in the ongoing water discourses and debates. The book refers to case studies in the form of boxes, sections, or as entire chapters. They illustrate success stories, but also lessons to be remembered, to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Based on consolidated state-of-the-art knowledge, it has been conceived and written to attract a multidisciplinary audience. The aim of this handbook is to facilitate understanding between the participants of the international water discourse and multi-level decision making processes. Knowing more about water, but also about concepts, methods and aspirations of different professional, disciplinary communities and stakeholders professionalizes the debate and enhances the decision making.

"The Blue Revolution" discusses the revolution that is underway in the development of new plans, strategies and designs for land use and all water related developments. Calder provides fresh information on land-water interactions that dispel much of the mythology that has hindered rational land use and water resource decision making in the past. This essential guide to recent breakthroughs in water resource management will prove indispensable to policymakers, researchers and students of hydrology, geography, biology and environmental sciences.

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture is FAO's first flagship publication on the global status of land and water resources. It is an 'advocacy' report, to be published every three to five years, and targeted at senior level decision makers in agriculture as well as in other sectors. SOLAW is aimed at sensitizing its target audience on the status of land resources at global and regional levels and FAO's viewpoint on appropriate recommendations for policy formulation. SOLAW focuses on these key dimensions of analysis: (i) quantity, quality of land and water resources, (ii) the rate of use and sustainable management of these resources in the context of relevant socio-economic driving factors and concerns, including food security and poverty, and climate change. This is the first time that a global, baseline status report on land and water resources has been made. It is based on several global spatial databases (e.g. land suitability for agriculture, land use and management, land and water degradation and depletion) for which FAO is the world-recognized data source. Topical and emerging issues on land and water are dealt with in an integrated rather than sectoral manner. The implications of the status and trends are used to advocate remedial interventions which are tailored to major farming systems within different geographic regions.

This is a fully revised and expanded second edition of Malcolm Newson's acclaimed book. Exploring in greater depth the meaning of sustainability in river basin development this new edition: * highlights the rapid evolution of practical concepts since the Rio Earth Summit * features new illustrations and case studies from Australia, South Africa and Israel * makes the ecosystem model more explicit throughout * strengthens coverage of the linkages between land and water management.

This book presents an analysis of land and water resources in Siberia, initially characterizing the landscapes, their ecosystems, crucial processes, human impacts on soil and water quality, and the status quo of available research. Further chapters deal with modern monitoring and management methods that can lead to a significant knowledge shift and initiate sustainable soil and water resources use. These include soil hydrological laboratory measurement methods; process-based field evaluation methods for land and water quality; remote sensing and GIS technology-based landscape monitoring methods; process and ecosystem modeling approaches; methods of resource and process evaluation and functional soil mapping; and tools for controlling agricultural land use systems. More than 15 of these concrete monitoring and management tools can immediately be incorporated into research and practice. Maintaining the functions of great landscapes for future generations will be the reward for these efforts.

This collection of 11 papers introduces broad topics covering various professional disciplines related to the research arena of land use and water quality. The papers exemplify the important links between agriculture and water quality in surface and ground waters as well as the pollution problems around urban areas. Advancement of new technologies for analyzing links between land use and water quality problems as well as insights into new tools for analyzing large monitoring datasets are highlighted in this collection of papers.