Produced biennially, The World’s Water provides a timely examination of the key issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. Each new volume identifies and explains the most significant trends worldwide, and offers the best data available on a variety of topics related to water. The 2008-2009 volume features overview chapters on: • water and climate change • water in China • status of the Millennium Development Goals for water • peak water • efficient urban water use • business reporting on water This new volume contains an updated chronology of global conflicts associated with water, as well as brief reviews of issues regarding desalination, the Salton Sea, and the Three Gorges Dam. From the world’s leading authority on water issues, The World’s Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources and the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with them. It is an essential reference for water resource professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use.

This volume translates crucial Chinese documents on a debate currently raging in China on a proposed project that has enormous implications for its environmental, economic, and social impact - the Three Gorges (Sanxia) Project on the Yangtze River. The most massive water resource project ever planned in China and one of the largest in the world, the Three Gorges Project would cost $1.1 billion to build, would necessitate the relocation of 1.1 million people, would flood a 375-mile-long area and thus destroy some of China's - indeed the world's - most beautiful scenery, and would threaten the extinction of a rare river porpoise. The editors seek to place the arguments in a clear and scholarly perspective that helps to make this book a valuable source of information.

The Three Gorges dam, currently being constructed on the Yantgze River in China, is controversial both inside and outside China, particularly because of the large number of people to be resettled (officially 1.2 million) and the environmental impacts. Using material previously unavailable in any Western language, it analyses the Chinese discussions over policy-making for the resettlement process and impacts. It concludes that the environment and resettlement policies have been linked in a new way in this project. However, despite these positive developments, it argues that the social impacts from resettlement have not yet reached a high level of political attention and that the Chinese authorities need to acknowledge that resettlement has social costs. The book provides an understanding of the social, political and economic factors of one of the largest and most controversial development projects currently being implemented. It also sheds light on China's policy-making procedures and political priorities over the past decade.

Recently, the Chinese government has decided, with a minimum of fanfare, to press ahead with one of the largest hydroelectric project ever built - a dam across the Yangtze river at the Three Gorges. The dam aims to generate 17,500 MW of electricity, will displace over 1 million people, and will create a lake over 450 miles long.

This is the first English book talking about the Three Gorges Project Eco-Environmental Monitoring System (TGPEEMS). It presents lessons learned in construction of large dam projects at home and abroad in this field, identifies existing problems before suggesting a scientific improvement plan. and, most importantly, it studies modification of the TGPEEMS to adapt it to the changing situation after the impoundment of the reservoir, and provides an essential overview of measures and progress in the ecological and environmental protection for the ongoing project. As such, it offers a valuable reference guide for both researchers and environmental decision-makers.Prof. Zhenli Huang works at the National Research Center for Sustainable Hydropower Research, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research. Prof. Bingfang Wu works at the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.