Solutions To Water Crises Related To Actual Interventions

This Research Topic is a part of the Delft 2021: 1st Sociohydrology Conference series. To view the other sessions please follow the links below: Innovating a New Knowledge Base for Water Justice Studies: Hydrosocial, Sociohydrology, and Beyond Scale Issues in Human-Water Systems Water Resources and Human Behavior: Analysis and Modeling of Coupled Water-Human Systems Feedbacks and Coevolution Innovative Sensing, Observing, Measuring and Analysing Human-Water Data “Pluralistic water research” integrates the hydrological and the social to provide sustainable solutions to water crises. While relying upon robust quantitative modelling, sociohydrology captures crises across many waters (surface, ground and interstitial) along quantity and quality dimensions, hydrosocial unfurls power hierarchies in access to safe and required quota of water, be it for drinking or irrigation purposes. The success of engineering solutions laying out “hard” interventions such as solar powered irrigation, dams, high yielding crop varieties, water treatment plants and water distributions and purifications depend on “soft” socio-political, cultural and psychological variables like the political landscape, community behaviours and governance arrangements. How these soft parameters limit or advance the effect of hard interventions await more enhanced modelling and place-based qualitative analyses to disentangle various cause-effect pathways. While historical and process-based sociohydrology accommodates detailed temporal datasets and causal relationships across human-water systems, the hydrosocial paradigm reconciles “non-modern”, anti-hegemonic, water techniques and knowledge systems, animating local agencies within specific hydroscapes. This issue is dedicated to capture real time innovations through which water challenges have been confronted. It intends to unravel “storylines” along actionable water projects, reflecting on mediations across multiple actors and networks in specific spatio-temporal and cultural contexts, finally drawing our attention to the correlation between projected promises and actual realities. Situated at the crossroads of “boundary work”, we invite articles that will deploy a range of interdisciplinary frameworks like RANAS (Risk, Attitude, Norms, Ability, and Self-regulation), APIE (Awareness, Participation, Involvement and Engagement), HUPE (Historical Urban Political Ecology), etc. to demonstrate coupled sociohydrological and hydrosocial realties and in turn getting informed by empirical insights emanating from these actual water interventions. The final aim of the special issue is not to showcase water just actual interventions but to elicit a rigorous mapping of sustainable processes facilitating collective co-production of resilient water trajectories.

This technical document contains clear and practical guidelines on how to implement real water savings in agriculture through interventions for enhancing crop water productivity. A distinction is made between real water savings and “apparent” water savings. Apparent water savings record reductions in water withdrawals but do not account for changes in water consumption. Real water savings record reductions in water consumption and non-recoverable return flows (runoff or percolation). This guidance document emphasizes the paradox of water savings at field and basin scales, which usually do not translate into increased water availability for other users, as is commonly believed.

The workshop organizers had previously identified three pillars that directly influence land and water resources, its policies and institutions at a regional scale. These were: (1) Availability of the resources; (2) Access to the resources; and (3) Achievements that can be obtained through the use of the resources (yields, productivity and income enhancement from these land and water resources). The two-day workshop focused on identifying appropriate research questions that would help improve the livelihoods of the rural poor in these three areas to cope with spatial and temporal variability, and scarcity, of available land and water resources, improve farmers’ access to these resources and ensure their distribution in an equitable manner, and achieve optimal productivity.

Always considered a classic renewable resource, after a hundred thousand years of farming and industry, rivers in many parts of the world are running dry and the groundwater is over pumped. In addition, the rate at which water sources are becoming contaminated with waste from humans, industry, and agriculture is truly alarming. Do these factors add up to a water crisis that merits drastic, large-scale action? Not necessarily say the editors of Water Crisis: Myth or Reality. They challenge this pessimism, concluding that while there are serious global water issues to be considered, the concept of a global water crisis is largely overstated. The book examines the issues and explores which conditions are permanent and unchangeable and which are remediable and changeable. The chapters explore when and where severe regional and local water problems occur and make suggestions about how they may be solved in a deliberate, non-crisis manner. The book covers recent breakthroughs in desalination technologies, the eco-sanitation revolution, international trade in agricultural products, methods of governance and negotiation in water allocation, and pricing and devolution of property rights and the roles they play in solving water issues. The editors, along with a panel of world-renowned experts, suggest that water issues can be solved over the next few decades using new technologies and processes.

The book provides a critical evaluation of South Africa’s freshwater resources to illustrate the way in which its freshwater resources, water access, services and infrastructure have continued to decline over the past three decades. The continued decline of water governance, management, water service delivery, dilapidated water infrastructure, dysfunctional local governments and overall excessive water degradation is illustrated and emphasized using real-life examples and case studies from various contexts within the country. The main argument of the book is that South Africa’s freshwater resources have declined to such an extent that it can be described as a predicament. Questionable water governance decisions and reactive water management practices have led to no improvement and/or increased degradation of freshwater resources. An overall lack of service delivery exists across the country, in various contexts, leading to further water and social decline. An inter-disciplinary evaluation of South Africa’s current water predicament is provided, major water crises are prioritized, and suitable recommendations are given to transform its predicament into problems which can be addressed. Suitable background information is given to emphasize the necessity of good water governance, management, and service delivery. South Africa’s freshwater resources are evaluated with specific focus on the decline of informed water governance, management, service delivery and water quality. Factors requiring urgent attention are determined and suitable recommendations and/or actions are provided. An evaluation and overall synthesis focused on the transformation of the predicament into problems is provided. Primary water problems are prioritized according to urgency and suitable recommendations are given to assist in transforming the country’s current complex water predicament into “simpler” water problems. Political will, collaboration with researchers, stakeholders, non-governmental organizations, and cooperation of civil society is required. South Africa’s already scarce freshwater resources and decaying infrastructure will persist and possibly collapse if no major actions or interventions are implemented.

One of the main problems confronting the world of the 21st Century is a shortage of water. There is already severe scarcity in many regions of the world, causing tremendous problems for local populations and indeed entire societies. There is insufficient water available for the production of food to alleviate poverty and starvation; the lack of water hampers industrial, urban and tourism development, forcing restrictions on other sectors, especially agriculture; health problems arise as the deterioration of ground and surface waters favours water-borne diseases, which flourish in the absence of decent water distribution and sewerage systems. Water conflicts still arise in areas under stress, while water for nature has become a vanishing priority in such zones. This book is a guide to the establishment of regional and/or local guidelines for developing and implementing new ideas for coping with water scarcity. The basic premise underlying the book is that water scarcity will persist, so personal, human and society-wide skills will be needed to cope with it while living in harmony with the necessary environmental constraints. The book provides basic information to assist decision makers, water managers, engineers, agronomists, social scientists and other professions (and their students) in formulating coherent, hopefully harmonious and consolidated views on the issue. Guidelines are also given for introducing the general public to the concept of water scarcity and how to deal with it.

From cities to biofuels, competition for water is accelerating. Climate change threatens to intensify the onset and severity of the water crisis in several regions of the developing world: this is already happening throughout much of Asia, the Mediterranean, southwestern Australia, and the southwestern US. Along with water shortages, unsafe water becomes an increasingly widespread problem, too. As water crises trigger food and health crises, billions may slip further into poverty, leading to greater social and political unrest, new wars, and worsening national security. Out of Water doesn't just illuminate the coming global water crisis: it presents innovative solutions in agriculture, engineering, governance, and beyond, including state-of-the art techniques for integrated water management. This book will help raise the level of debate about water to the highest levels of government, and identify workable reforms and incentives to help water users utilize this crucial resource far more efficiently.

The revised and updated second edition of Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Changing Environment offers an interdisciplinary guide to the conditions responsible for water and sanitation related diseases. The authors discuss the pathogens, vectors, and their biology, morbidity and mortality that result from a lack of safe water and sanitation. The text also explores the distribution of these diseases and the conditions that must be met to reduce or eradicate them. The text includes contributions from authorities from the fields of climate change, epidemiology, environmental health, environmental engineering, global health, medicine, medical anthropology, nutrition, population, and public health. Covers the causes of individual diseases with basic information about the diseases and data on the distribution, prevalence, and incidence as well as interconnected factors such as environmental factors. The authors cover access to and maintenance of clean water, and guidelines for the safe use of wastewater, excreta, and grey water, plus examples of solutions. Written for students, and professionals in infectious disease, public health and medicine, chemical and environmental engineering, and international affairs, the second edition of Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Changing Environment isa comprehensive resource to the conditions responsible for water and sanitation related diseases.