Contributed articles worked and developed by ICID Working Group on History of Irrigation, Drainage, and Flood Control established in 1980.

Human history is periodically punctuated by natural disasters, from Vesuvius' eruption to the modern-day Covid-19 pandemic. Volcanoes have buried entire cities, earthquakes have reduced structures to smoldering ruins. Floods and cyclones have wreaked havoc on river valleys and coastlines, and desertification and climate change have weakened society's underpinnings. Death tolls are often escalated by starvation and illness, which frequently occur in tandem. This second edition assesses natural disasters on human society and the effect of strategies developed to reduce their impact. This book addresses the interconnectivity of disaster and human responsibility through 23 updated case studies, including a new chapter on the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami and the ensuing Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Groundwater theme is a component of Encyclopedia of Water Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of lithologic formations. This theme presents a perspective of the field of groundwater and an overview of the important aspects of the subject such as, natural origin and distribution, characteristics under diverse climates and surrounding rocky environments, exploration and management, natural quality and human related sources of contamination, sustainable exploitation of resources, protection and current research trends. The content of the theme on Groundwater is organized with state-of-the-art presentations covering several topics: Origin, Distribution, Formation, and Effects; Typical Hydrogeological Scenarios; Transport Processes in Groundwater; Transport Phenomena and Vulnerability of the Unsaturated Zone; Groundwater Development; Groundwater Use and Protection; Groundwater Management: An Overview of Hydro-geology, Economic Values and Principles of Management; Special Issues in Groundwater, which are then expanded into multiple subtopics, each as a chapter. These three volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, Managers, and Decision makers and NGOs

With increasing water scarcity, pressure to re-allocate water from agriculture to other uses mounts, along with a need to put in place institutional arrangements to promote 'higher value' uses of water. Many developing countries are now experimenting with establishing new institutional arrangements for managing water at the river basin level.This book, based on research by IWMI and others, reviews basin management in six developed and developing countries. It describes and applies a functional theory of river basin management, based on the idea that there is a minimum set of functions required to manage basins effectively and a set of basic conditions that enable effective management institutions to emerge. The book examines the experiences of both developed and developing countries in order to see what lessons can be learned and to identify what constitutes the core of a 'theory of river basin management'. It concludes that although it is difficult for developing countries to adopt approaches and institutional designs directly from developed countries, basic principles and lessons are transferable.