Decision-Making in Water Resource Policy and Management: An Australian Perspective presents the latest information in developing new decision-making processes. Topics covered include key aspects of water resources planning, recent water resource policy changes in irrigation, urban, and environmental considerations, the evolution of a water market, a number of case studies that provide real examples of improved decision-making, transfer of the Australian experience overseas, and challenges for the future. Many countries are experiencing major water scarcity problems which will likely intensify with the continued impacts of climate change. In response to this challenge, there is increased worldwide focus on the development of more sustainable and integrated water resource policies. The Australian experience over the past three decades has led to major improvements in the decision-making processes in water resources policy and management, particularly in response to drought and climate change, providing a great model on which other nations can use and adapt. This information is essential to early to mid-career practitioners engaged in policy, planning and operational roles in all fields of water resource policy and management, and catchment management. - Summarizes key results from three decades of changes in Australian water resource policy - Illustrates how Australian knowledge is being used in other countries and how this might be expanded - Provides international practitioners with real examples of where and how the Australian knowledge is assisting in other situations

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. This revised, updated textbook presents a systems approach to the planning, management, and operation of water resources infrastructure in the environment. Previously published in 2005 by UNESCO and Deltares (Delft Hydraulics at the time), this new edition, written again with contributions from Jery R. Stedinger, Jozef P. M. Dijkman, and Monique T. Villars, is aimed equally at students and professionals. It introduces readers to the concept of viewing issues involving water resources as a system of multiple interacting components and scales. It offers guidelines for initiating and carrying out water resource system planning and management projects. It introduces alternative optimization, simulation, and statistical methods useful for project identification, design, siting, operation and evaluation and for studying post-planning issues. The authors cover both basin-wide and urban water issues and present ways of identifying and evaluating alternatives for addressing multiple-purpose and multi-objective water quantity and quality management challenges. Reinforced with cases studies, exercises, and media supplements throughout, the text is ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in water resource planning and management as well as for practicing planners and engineers in the field.

This report contains a collection of papers from a workshopâ€"Strengthening Science-Based Decision-Making for Sustainable Management of Scarce Water Resources for Agricultural Production, held in Tunisia. Participants, including scientists, decision makers, representatives of non-profit organizations, and a farmer, came from the United States and several countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The papers examined constraints to agricultural production as it relates to water scarcity; focusing on 1) the state of the science regarding water management for agricultural purposes in the Middle East and North Africa 2) how science can be applied to better manage existing water supplies to optimize the domestic production of food and fiber. The cross-cutting themes of the workshop were the elements or principles of science-based decision making, the role of the scientific community in ensuring that science is an integral part of the decision making process, and ways to improve communications between scientists and decision makers.

As national and international concern over sustainable resources becomes more prevalent, the need for decision support systems (DSS) increases. The applicable uses of a successful system can assist in the sustainability of resources, as well as the efficiency and management of the agri-environment industry. Decision Support Systems in Agriculture, Food and the Environment: Trends, Applications and Advances presents the development of DSS for managing agricultural and environmental systems, focusing on the exposition of innovative methodologies, from web-mobile systems to artificial intelligence and knowledge-based DSS, as well as their applications in every aspect from harvest planning to international food production and land management. This book provides an in depth look into the growing importance of DSS in agriculture.

This book is an introduction to hydroinformatics applied to urban water management. It shows how to make the best use of information and communication technologies for manipulating information to manage water in the urban environment. The book covers the acquisition and analysis of data from urban water systems to instantiate mathematical models or calculations, which describe identified physical processes. The models are operated within prescribed management procedures to inform decision makers, who are responsible to recognized stakeholders. The application is to the major components of the urban water environment, namely water supply, treatment and distribution, wastewater and stormwater collection, treatment and impact on receiving waters, and groundwater and urban flooding. Urban Hydroinformatics pays particular attention to modeling, decision support through procedures, economics and management, and implementation in both developed and developing countries. The book is written with post-graduates, researchers and practicing engineers who are involved in urban water management and want to improve the scope and reliability of their systems.

This book provides a systematic way of how to make better decisions in water resources management. The applications of three weighting methods namely rating, ranking, and ratio are discussed in this book. Additionally, data mining on keywords is presented using three popular scholarly databases: Science Direct, Scopus, and SciVerse. Four abbreviated keywords (MCDM, MCDA, MCA, MADM) representing multi-criteria decision-making were used and these three databases were searched for different popular weighting methods for a period of 13 years (2000-2012). The book provides also a review of weighting methods applied in various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods and also presents survey results on priority ranking of watershed management criteria undertaken by 30 undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

This book provides an overview of facts, theories and methods from hydrology, geology, geophysics, law, ethics, economics, ecology, engineering, sociology, diplomacy and many other disciplines with relevance for concepts and practice of water resources management. It provides comprehensive, but also critical reading material for all communities involved in the ongoing water discourses and debates. The book refers to case studies in the form of boxes, sections, or as entire chapters. They illustrate success stories, but also lessons to be remembered, to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Based on consolidated state-of-the-art knowledge, it has been conceived and written to attract a multidisciplinary audience. The aim of this handbook is to facilitate understanding between the participants of the international water discourse and multi-level decision making processes. Knowing more about water, but also about concepts, methods and aspirations of different professional, disciplinary communities and stakeholders professionalizes the debate and enhances the decision making.