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.

This book highlights the relationship between the water sector and various other sectors in order to establish an improved understanding of the importance of water resources as an essential cross-cutting vector of socio-economic development. The book is both policy and practice oriented and is not constrained by existing definitions on water security. It includes actual experiences of policy, management, development and governance decisions taken within the water sector, and examples on how these have affected the energy and agricultural sectors as well as impacted the environment, and vice versa, as appropriate. It also discusses trade-offs, short and long-term implications, lessons learnt, and the way forward. The book includes case studies on cities, countries and regions such as Australia, China, Singapore, Central Asia, Morocco, Southern Africa, France, Latin America, Brazil and California.

Among the most compelling environmental issues of today and tomorrow are those concerning the world's fresh water resources. Peter H. Gleick's important new volume, Water in Crisis, addresses the timely and sometimes controversial aspects of world water use. At stake are water quality, quantity, and possible future conflicts over shared international water resources. Nine essays by leading specialists from fields as diverse as hydrology, zoology, and law, among others, cover such issues as the status of developments in international water law; hydroelectric power; the possible effects of climatic change on water resources; and the state of fresh water fisheries. Particular chapters explore access to clean drinking water and sanitation; the use of water for energy and food production; the quality of rivers, lakes, and inland seas; and the condition of natural aquatic ecosystems. A joint project of the Pacific Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute, this book is a comprehensive guide to the world's fresh water resources. Hydrologists, engineers, policy makers, professionals in the environmental sciences, as well as lay readers will find Water in Crisis a dynamic resource and information-packed reference. More than 200 tables of fresh water data supplement this important volume.

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene provides the platform to present global and regional perspectives of world-wide experiences on the responses of water management to global change in order to address issues such as variability in supply, increasing demands for water, environmental flows and land use change. It helps to build links between science and policy and practice in the area of water resources management and governance, relates institutional and technological innovations and identifies in which ways research can assist policy and practice in the field of sustainable freshwater management. Until the industrial revolution, human beings and their activities played an insignificant role influencing the dynamics of the Earth system, the sum of our planet‘s interacting physical, chemical, and biological processes. Today, humankind even exceeds nature in terms of changing the biosphere and affecting all other facets of Earth system functioning. A growing number of scientists argue that humanity has entered a new geological epoch that needs a corresponding name: the Anthropocene. Human activities impact the global water system as part of the Earth system and change the way water moves around the globe like never before. Thus, managing freshwater use wisely in the planetary water cycle has become a key challenge to reach global environmental sustainability.

Water systems are building blocks for poverty alleviation, shared growth, sustainable development, and green growth strategies. They require data from in-situ observation networks. Budgetary and other constraints have taken a toll on their operation and there are many regions in the world where the data are scarce or unreliable. Increasingly, remote sensing satellite-based earth observation is becoming an alternative. This book briefly describes some key global water challenges, perspectives for remote sensing approaches, and their importance for water resources-related activities. It describes eight key types of water resources management variables, a list of sensors that can produce such information, and a description of existing data products with examples. Earth Observation for Water Resources Management provides a series of practical guidelines that can be used by project leaders to decide whether remote sensing may be useful for the problem at hand and suitable data sources to consider if so. The book concludes with a review of the literature on reliability statistics of remote-sensed estimations.

Now in an updated edition, this pioneering and authoritative study considers the profound impact of the growing global water crunch on international peace and security as well as possible ways to mitigate the crisis. Although water is essential to sustaining life and livelihoods, geostrategist Brahma Chellaney argues that it remains the world’s most underappreciated and undervalued resource. One sobering fact is that the retail price of bottled water is already higher than the international spot price of crude oil. But unlike oil, water has no substitute, raising the specter of water becoming the next flashpoint for conflict. Water war as a concept may not mesh with the conventional construct of warfare, especially for those who plan with tanks, combat planes, and attack submarines as weapons. Yet armies don’t necessarily have to march to battle to seize or defend water resources. Water wars—in a political, diplomatic, or economic sense—are already being waged between riparian neighbors in many parts of the world, fueling cycles of bitter recrimination, exacerbating water challenges, and fostering mistrust that impedes broader regional cooperation and integration. The danger is that these water wars could escalate to armed conflict or further limit already stretched food and energy production. Writing in a direct, nontechnical, and engaging style, Brahma Chellaney draws on a wide range of research from scientific and policy fields to examine the different global linkages between water and peace. Offering a holistic picture and integrated solutions, his book has become the recognized authority on the most precious natural resource of this century and how we can secure humankind’s water future.

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.