The impacts of water resources and irrigation development need to be quantified in order to understand the environmental costs of such development activities. Complex data-intensive simulation methods are normally used for this purpose in the developed world. However, lack of reliable data prohibits the use of such models in developing countries where it is more practical to apply models with less data requirements. The report illustrates three applications of simple and pragmatic simulation models to small coastal water bodies in Sri Lanka and South Africa.

The management of water resources is being transformed in South Africa. All water users, especially the small-scale ones, are now invited to participate in this movement. This report reviews the process of inclusion of small-scale users in the new large-scale Water User Associations (WUA).Considering the difficulties encountered in this process, this report also recommend external monitoring after the transformation of an Irrigation Board into a WUA. This method may also facilitate assessment of the inclusion of small-scale users into catchment management agencies, and water resource management organizations.

This report describes the development of the near real-time drought monitoring and reporting system for the region, which currently includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and western parts of India. The system is based on drought-related indices derived from high-resolution remote-sensing data (MODIS). The unique feature of the study is the development of regression relationships between drought-related indices obtained from MODIS and AVHRR data, which have different pixel-resolution and optical characteristics. The goal is to make the system available, via Internet, to all stakeholders in the region.

This book provides a broad and well-integrated overview of recent major scientific results in wetland science and their applications in natural resource management issues. The contributors, internationally known experts, summarize the state of the art on an array of topics, divided into four broad areas: The Role of Wetlands for Integrated Water Resources Management: Putting Theory into Practice; Wetland Science for Environmental Management; Wetland Biogeochemistry; Wetlands and Climate Change Worldwide.

Although the protection of the aquatic environment is high on the world water resources agenda, most developing countries still lack the technical and institutional capacity to establish environmental water allocation practices and policies. The existing methods of assessment of environmental water allocations are either complex and resource-intensive or not tailor-made for the specific conditions of a particular country or region. To promote emerging concepts of environmental flow assessment and management, it is important to change the dominant perception that environmental demand is the least important and create awareness among responsible authorities about existing methodologies and processes that should be followed. This report presents some of these approaches and illustrates their applicability in the specific context of the East Rapti River basin, which features one of the main tourist attractions of Nepal, the Chitwan National Park.

India is a large country with regional differences in per-capita water supply and demand. Attempts to describe the water situation in India at a national level are often misleading due to the tremendous diversity in the water situation across the country. This Report analyzes the spatial variation of water supply and demand across river basins in India. The study identifies basins that are water-scarce because of inadequate water availability to meet the effective demand. It also identifies issues that are important for estimating the future water demand and for the formation of policy for future water-resources development and management.

This paper reports on a form of multi-criteria analysis that provides a formal approach for evaluating the suitability of a wetland for specific agricultural uses, and ensures that explicit consideration is given to the possible consequences of such utilization. The method is based on a hybrid of ideas taken from concepts and methodologies related to: environmental flow assessments, land suitability classification and the hazard evaluation procedures used in the design of dams. The approach, which elaborates the idea of working wetlands, is generic, though the examples presented are for case studies from southern Africa.