This text is the first international and comprehensive discussion of the impacts of climatic fluctuations and climate change on water resources management. The book presents an overview of the impacts of climatic change/fluctuations on a wide variety of water resources sectors including river runoff, water quality, water temperature, water use and demand, reservoir management and water resource planning and management. The book is unique in that it then presents a series of case studies to both demonstrate the application of climate change impact assessment methodologies and to provide insights to catchment, river basin, and national scale impacts of climate change/fluctuations on the water resources of Africa, Europe, and North America. Audience: Researchers, scholars and students of hydrology and water management who are concerned with the issues of climate change as well as the climate change impact assessment community.

The question of whether the earth's climate is changing in some significant human-induced way remains a matter of much debate. But the fact that climate is variable over time is well known. These two elements of climatic uncertainty affect water resources planning and management in the American West. Managing Water Resources in the West Under Conditions of Climate Uncertainty examines the scientific basis for predictions of climate change, the implications of climate uncertainty for water resources management, and the management options available for responding to climate variability and potential climate change.

The impacts of climate change on water resource management, as well as increasingly severe natural disasters over the last decades, have caught global attention. Reliable and accurate hydrological forecasts are essential for efficient water resource management and the mitigation of natural disasters. While the notorious nonlinear hydrological processes make accurate forecasts a very challenging task, it requires advanced techniques to build accurate forecast models and reliable management systems. One of the newest techniques for modeling complex systems is artificial intelligence (AI). AI can replicate the way humans learn and has great capability to efficiently extract crucial information from large amounts of data to solve complex problems. The fourteen research papers published in this Special Issue contribute significantly to the uncertainty assessment of operational hydrologic forecasting under changing environmental conditions and the promotion of water resources management by using the latest advanced techniques, such as AI techniques. The fourteen contributions across four major research areas: (1) machine learning approaches to hydrologic forecasting; (2) uncertainty analysis and assessment on hydrological modeling under changing environments; (3) AI techniques for optimizing multi-objective reservoir operation; (4) adaption strategies of extreme hydrological events for hazard mitigation. The papers published in this issue will not only advance water sciences but also help policymakers to achieve more sustainable and effective water resource management.

"This book provides an excellent overview of contemporary problems in reservoir management, from planning aspects of large multi-objective reservoirs and regarding small farm dams in Africa, to governmental matters, to sedimentation issues, to climate change impacts. Given the stochastic nature of hydrological conditions, the limited information available to characterize it and the multi-faceted targets of reservoir management, reservoir planning and operation are ambitious challenges for hydrologists and water managers. Reservoir management considers supply and demand. Demand includes the objectives of water management, but also the expectations of society, which develop with time; ecological targets for reservoir operation are now more important, social aspects and requirements are relevant and there are new constraints and objectives for operation of even older dams. The supply side has become more uncertain with increasing awareness of climate change causing growing concern about its impacts on the performance and reliability of existing and planned water management systems."--Provided by publisher.

To plan successfully and manage the increased uncertainties posed by likely future climate change, knowledge needs to advance much more for the water profession beyond what it is now available. Meeting these challenges does not depend exclusively on advances in climatological-hydrologic models. Policies for adaptation and strategies for mitigation measures have to be formulated on the basis of what are likely to be the potential impacts. These will have to be regularly fine-tuned and implemented according to changing needs and as more reliable knowledge and data become available. Even more challenging will be the politics of policy making and implementation, which will require a quantum leap from current policy-making and implementation processes. One can even say that, in addition to the development of more reliable models, the politics of climate change and water management remains one of the greatest uncertainties for the water profession. This book addresses water management practices and how these should and could be modified to cope with climatic and other related uncertainties over the next two to three decades; the types of strategies and good practices that may be available or have to be developed to cope with the current and expected uncertainties in relation to climate change; and the types of knowledge, information and technological developments needed to incorporate possible future climate change impacts within the framework of water resources management. Decision making in the water sector under changing climate and related uncertainties, and societal water security under altering and fluctuating climate are also discussed. Several case studies are included from several basins, cities, regions and countries in both developed and non-developing countries. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.

Storage reservoirs represent one of the most effective tools for eliminating, or at least for minimizing, discrepancies in the time and space variations of water resources distribution and requirements. In fact, the different - often contradictory - and increasing demands on water resources utilization and control usually can be fulfilled only by building multi-purpose reservoir systems. In this way, the available water resources can be exploited and/or managed in a more rational way. Typically, the construction of a dam across a river valley causes water to accumulate in a reservoir behind the dam; the volume of water accumulated in the reservoir will depend, in part, on the dimensions of the dam. The size of the dam will normally affect the capital expenditure in a very significant way. Indeed the construction of large water resource control systems - such as dams - generally involves rather huge manpower and material outlays. Consequently, the elaboration of effectual methods of approach that can be used in establishing the optimal reservoir parameters is of great practical significance. For instance, in the design and operation oflarge multi-reservoir systems, simple simulation and/or optimization models that can identify potentially cost effective and efficient system design are highly desirable. But it should be recognized that the problem of finding optimal capacities for multi-reservoir systems often becomes computationally complex because of the large number of feasible configurations that usually need to be analyzed.