Contains 224 citations on the topic of water resource management in the U.S., Canada, Central & South America. Includes articles on rural perspectives, water pollution, water quality, etc. Most citations contain abstracts. Author & subject index.

The vast size of the United States and extensive variation of its climate, topography, and biota across different regions contribute to both the richness of the nation‘s natural heritage and the complexities involved in managing its resources. A follow-up to RFF‘s popular America‘s Renewable Resources (1990), Perspectives on Sustainable Resources in America updates readers about the current challenges involved in managing America‘s natural resources, especially in light of the increasing emphasis on sustainability and ecosystem approaches to management. Written to inform general audiences and students, as well as to engage the interest of experts, the book includes assessments by some of the nation‘s most renowned scholars in natural resource economics and policy. An introductory chapter critically examines the concept of sustainability as it has been developed in recent years and asks how the concept might apply to individual resource systems. It considers the interrelatedness of ecosystem, economic, and social sustainability; the paradigms of resource sufficiency and functional integrity; and the contrast between weak and strong sustainability. The chapters that follow examine America‘s experience with forests, water, agricultural soils, and wildlife. Highlighting the adaptability and resilience of resource systems, each chapter provides a description of the physical characteristics of the resource, a history of its use, a policy history, and a review of ongoing debates in management and policy. Perspectives on Sustainable Resources in America concludes with an innovative treatment of biodiversity as a natural resource. The chapter reviews the definitions of biodiversity, the ecological and economic meanings of biodiversity, and current efforts to preserve biodiversity, especially through regulatory approaches.

Provides an analysis of the evolution and trends of the agricultural sector and its four main subsectors: agriculture, livestock, forestry, and fishing and aquaculture. Addresses rural well-being and agricultural and rural institutions. Highlights the price volatility and its causes and future uncertainties as a relevant factor to be considered by decision-makers in the sector.

Leonardo da Vinci, the eminent Renaissance scholar and philosopher said, "water is the driver of nature". Many may have considered it to be an overstatement in the past, but at the beginning of the third millennium, no sane individual would disagree with Leonardo's view. Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource for most of the world's citizens. The current trends indicate that the overall situation is likely to deteriorate further, at least for the next two decades, unless the water profession eschews its existing "business as usual" practices, which can only allow incremental changes to occur. Somewhat surprisingly, the water profession as a whole neither realised nor appreciated the gravity of the global water situation as late as 1990, even though a few serious scholars have been pointing out the increasing criticality of the situation from around 1982. For example, the seriousness of the crisis was not a major issue, either at the International Conference on W ater and the Environment, which was organised by the UN system in Dublin and also at the UN Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro. Held in 1992, both are considered to be important events for the water sector of the past decade. It is now being increasingly recognised that the Dublin Conference was poorly planned and organised, and thus not surprisingly it produced very little, if any, worthwhile and lasting results.