Water resources are under extreme pressure today all over the world. The resulting problems have given rise to many activities which reflect the growing concern about them and the importance of effective management.As water increasingly becomes a precious resource on which the well-being of future generations depends, it is essential to discuss issues concerning quality, quantity, planning and other related topics.Containing papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Water Resources Management, this book examines the recent technological and scientific developments associated with the management of surface and sub-surface water resources. The wide variety of subjects covered are as follows: Water Resource Management and Planning; Waste Water Treatment and Management; Water Markets and Policies; Urban Water Management; Water Quality; Storm Water Management; Water Security Systems; Pollution Control; Irrigation Problems; Reservoirs and Lakes; River Basin Management; Hydrological Modelling; Flood Risk; Decision Support Systems; Groundwater Flow Problems and Remediation Technologies; Coastal and Estuarial Problems; Soil and Water Conservation and Risk Analysis.

Drinking Water Safety: Basic Principles and Applications, examines the technical and scientific, as well as regulatory, ethical, and emerging issues of pollution prevention, sustainability, and optimization for the production and management of safe drinking water to cope with environmental pollution, population growth, increasing demand, terrorist threats, and climate change pressures. It presents a summary of conventional water and wastewater treatment technologies, in addition to the latest processes. Features include:  Provides a summary of current and future of global water resources and availability.  Summarizes key U.S. regulatory programs designed to ensure protection of water quality and safe drinking water supplies, with details on modern approaches for water utility resilience.  Examines the latest water treatment technologies and processes, including separate chapters on evaporation, crystallization, nanotechnology, membrane-based processes, and innovative desalination approaches.  Reviews the specialized literature on pollution prevention, sustainability, and the role of optimization in water treatment and related areas, as well as references for further reading.  Provides illustrative examples and case studies that complement the text throughout, as well as an appendix with sections on units and conversion constants.

This book is divided into four parts. The first part, Preliminaries, begins by introducing the basic theme of the book. It provides an overview of the current status of water resources utilization, the likely scenario of future demands, and advantages and disadvantages of systems techniques. An understanding of how the hydrological data are measured and processed is important before undertaking any analysis. The discussion is extended to emerging techniques, such as Remote Sensing, GIS, Artificial Neural Networks, and Expert Systems. The statistical tools for data analysis including commonly used probability distributions, parameter estimation, regression and correlation, frequency analysis, and time-series analysis are discussed in a separate chapter. Part 2 Decision Making, is a bouquet of techniques organized in 4 chapters. After discussing optimization and simulation, the techniques of economic analysis are covered. Recently, environmental and social aspects, and rehabilitation and resettlement of project-affected people have come to occupy a central stage in water resources management and any good book is incomplete unless these topics are adequately covered. The concept of rational decision making along with risk, reliability, and uncertainty aspects form subject matter of a chapter. With these analytical tools, the practitioner is well equipped to take a rational decision for water resources utilization. Part 3 deals with Water Resources Planning and Development. This part discusses the concepts of planning, the planning process, integrated planning, public involvement, and reservoir sizing.The last part focuses on Systems Operation and Management. After a resource is developed, it is essential to manage it in the best possible way. Many dams around the world are losing some storage capacity every year due to sedimentation and therefore, the assessment and management of reservoir sedimentation is described in details. No analysis of water resources systems is complete without consideration of water quality. A river basin is the natural unit in which water occurs. The final chapter discusses various issues related to holistic management of a river basin.

Better water management will be crucial if we are to meet many of the key challenges of this century - feeding the worlds growing population and reducing poverty, meeting water and sanitation needs, protecting vital ecosystems, all while adapting to climate change. The approach known as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is widely recognized as the best way forward, but is poorly understood, even within the water sector. Since a core IWRM principle is that good water management must involve the water users, the understanding and involvement of other sectors is critical for success. There is thus an urgent need for practical guidance, for both water and development professionals, based on real world examples, rather than theoretical constructs. That is what this book provides. Using case studies, the book illustrates how better water management, guided by the IWRM approach, has helped to meet a wide range of sustainable development goals. It does this by considering practical examples, looking at how IWRM has contributed, at different scales, from very local, village-level experiences to reforms at national level and beyond to cases involving trans-boundary river basins. Using these on-the-ground experiences, from both developed and developing countries in five continents, the book provides candid and practical lessons for policy-makers, donors, and water and development practitioners worldwide, looking at how IWRM principles were applied, what worked, and, equally important, what didn‘t work, and why. Published with the Global Water Partnership

This volume brings together diverse voices relating to the critical issue of water management in one of the world’s most politically volatile areas: the Middle East. The book collects the opinions of Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians as well as international experts on creating a holistic and comprehensive view of water management challenges and strategies in the Middle East.

The Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) paradigm has been worldwide recognized as the only feasible way currently available to ensure a sustainable perspective in planning and managing water resource systems. It is the inspiring principle of the Water Framework Directive, adopted by the European Union in 2000, as well as the main reference for all the water related activity of UNESCO in the third world countries. However, very often, real world attempts of implementing IWRM fail for the lack of a systematic approach and the inadequacy of tools and techniques adopted to address the intrinsically complex nature of water systems. This book explores recent and important contributions of System Analysis and Control Theory to the technical application of such paradigm and to the improvement of its theoretical basis. Its prior aim is to demonstrate how the modelling and computational difficulties posed by this paradigm might be significantly reduced by strengthening the efficiency of the solution techniques, instead of weakening the integration requirements. The first introductory chapter provides the reader with a logical map of the book, by formalizing the IWRM paradigm in a nine-step decisional procedure and by identifying the points where the contribution of System Analysis and Control Theory is more useful. The book is then organized in three sections whose chapters analyze some theoretical and mathematical aspects of these contributions or presents design applications. The outstanding research issues on the border between System Analysis and IWRM is depicted in the last chapter, where a pull of scientists and experts, coordinated by Prof. Tony Jakeman describe the foreseeable scenario. The book is based on the most outstanding contributions to the IFAC workshop on Modelling and Control for Participatory Planning and Managing Water Systems held in Venice, September 28- October 1, 2004. That workshop has been conceived and organized with the explicit purpose of producing this book: the maximum length of the papers was unusually long (of the size of a book chapter) and only five long oral presentations were planned each day, thus allowing for a very useful and constructive discussion. - Contributions from the leading world specialists of the field - Integration of technical modelling aspects and participatory decision-making - Good compromise between theory and application

Over 7 billion people demand water from resources that the changing climate is making more and more difficult to harness. Water scarcity and shortage are increasingly common and conditions are becoming more extreme. Inadequate and inappropriate management of water is already taking its toll on the environment and on the quality of life of millions of people. Modern water professionals have a duty to develop sound water science and robust evidence to lobby and influence national and regional development policy and investment priorities. We need to be bold and brave to challenge the status quo, argue the case for change, and create a New Water Architecture. Water Resources: A New Water Architecture takes a unique approach to the challenges of water management. The stress caused by our desire to live, eat, and consume is examined in the context of Governance, the role of policy, and the commercial world. The authors share their nine-step vision for a New Water Architecture. Written by three industry practitioners, this book provides students, young professionals, policymakers, and those interested in the sustainability of our natural resources with a pragmatic and compelling perspective on how to manage the ultimate resource of our time.