Proper management of water resources can take many forms, and requires the knowledge and expertise to work at the intersection of mathematics, geology, biology, geography, meteorology, political science, and even psychology. This book provides an essential foundation in water management and development concepts and practices, dissecting complex topics into short, understandable explanations that spark true interest in the field. Approaching the study of water resources systematically, the discussion begins with historical perspective before moving on to physical processes, engineering, water chemistry, government regulation, environmental issues, global conflict, and more. Now in its fourth edition, this text provides the most current introduction to a field that is becoming ever more critical as climate change begins to threaten water supplies around the world. As geography, climate, population growth, and technology collide, effective resource management must include a comprehensive understanding of how these forces intermingle and come to life in the water so critical to us all.

The world faces huge challenges for water as population continues to grow, as emerging economies develop and as climate change alters the global and local water cycle. There are major questions to be answered about how we supply water in a sustainable and safe manner to fulfil our needs, while at the same time protecting vulnerable ecosystems from disaster. Water Resources: An Integrated Approach provides students with a comprehensive overview of both natural and socio-economic processes associated with water. The book contains chapters written by 20 specialist contributors, providing expert depth of coverage to topics. The text guides the reader through the topic of water starting with its unique properties and moving through environmental processes and human impacts upon them including the changing water cycle, water movement in river basins, water quality, groundwater and aquatic ecosystems. The book then covers management strategies for water resources, water treatment and re-use, and the role of water in human health before covering water economics and water conflict. The text concludes with a chapter that examines new concepts such as virtual water that help us understand current and future water resource use and availability across interconnected local and global scales. This book provides a novel interdisciplinary approach to water in a changing world, from an environmental change perspective and inter-related social, political and economic dimensions. It includes global examples from both the developing and developed world. Each chapter is supplemented with boxed case studies, end of chapter questions, and further reading, as well as a glossary of terms. The text is richly illustrated throughout with over 150 full colour diagrams and photos.

The vocabulary and discourse of water resource management have expanded vastly in recent years to include an array of new concepts and terminology, such as water security, water productivity, virtual water and water governance. While the new conceptual lenses may generate insights that improve responses to the world’s water challenges, their practical use is often encumbered by ambiguity and confusion. This book applies critical scrutiny to a prominent set of new but widely used terms, in order to clarify their meanings and improve the basis on which we identify and tackle the world’s water challenges. More specifically, the book takes stock of what several of the more prominent new terms mean, reviews variation in interpretation, explores how they are measured, and discusses their respective added value. It makes many implicit differences between terms explicit and aids understanding and use of these terms by both students and professionals. At the same time, it does not ignore the legitimately contested nature of some concepts. Further, the book enables greater precision on the interpretational options for the various terms, and for the value that they add to water policy and its implementation.

In this concise introduction to water resources, Shimon Anisfeld explores the fundamental interactions between humans and water, including drinking, sanitation, irrigation, and power production. The book familiarizes students with the current water crisis and with approaches for managing this essential resource more effectively in a time of rapid environmental and social change. Anisfeld addresses both human and ecological problems, including scarcity, pollution, disease, flooding, conflicts over water, and degradation of aquatic ecosystems. In addition to providing the background necessary to understand each of these problems, the book discusses ways to move towards better management and addresses the key current debates in the water policy field. In the past, water development has often proceeded in a single-sector fashion, with each group of users implementing its own plans without coordination with other groups, resulting in both conflict and inefficiency. Now, Anisfeld writes, the challenge of water management is figuring out how to balance all the different demands for water, from sanitation to energy generation to ecosystem protection. For inquiring students of any level, Water Resources provides a comprehensive one-volume guide to a complex but vital field of study.

Providing clean water to earth's rapidly growing human population is one the major issues of the 21st Century. The climatic effects of global warming on water supply has made this a hot-button issue.

The aim of this report is to help improve the quality of the knowledge on the state of the world's water resources. In order to provide a basis for discussing the issues, FAO's Aquastat programme compiles existing quantitative and qualitative information on water resources, water use and irrigation by country. This report focuses on the work done through the Aquastat surveys to collect and analyse available information on water resources for all countries in the world. The report presents the concepts and methodology applied in order to compute country-level water resources data. It presents and analyses the key findings at both global and regional levels. It also discusses the limitations of the approach and the information gaps that remain.