Integrated River Basin Governance - Learning from International Experience is designed to help practitioners implement integrated approaches to river basin management (IRBM). It aims to help the coming generation of senior university students learn how to design IRBM and it provides current researchers and the broader water community with a resource on river basin management. Drawing on both past and present river basin and valley scale catchment management examples from around the world, the book develops an integration framework for river basin management. Grounded in the theory and literature of natural resources management and planning, the thrust of the book is to assist policy and planning, rather than extend knowledge of hydrology, biophysical modelling or aquatic ecology. Providing a classification of river basin organizations and their use, the book also covers fundamental issues related to implementation: decision-making. institutions and organizations. information management. participation and awareness. legal and economic issues. integration and coordination processes. building human capacity. Integrated River Basin Governance focuses on the social, economic, organizational and institutional arrangements of river basin management. Methods are outlined for implementing strategic and regional approaches to river basin management, noting the importance of context and other key elements which have been shown to impede success. The book includes a range of tools for river basin governance methods, derived from real life experiences in both developed and developing countries. The successes and failures of river basin management are discussed, and lessons learned from both are presented. The ebook for this title is available to download for free on the WaterWiki.

Worldwide development of agriculture and industry creates burgeoning demands on natural resources. Management of the rivers and the surrounding landscape is one of the important tasks for today and for the foreseeable future. Lessons learned from centuries of management (and mismanagement) have been distilled into principles and practices which form the subject matter for this book. It provides both a global perspective and an entrée to the special problems associated with management of transboundary rivers.

Recent studies of past climate and streamflow conditions have broadened understanding of long-term water availability in the Colorado River, revealing many periods when streamflow was lower than at any time in the past 100 years of recorded flows. That information, along with two important trends-a rapid increase in urban populations in the West and significant climate warming in the region-will require that water managers prepare for possible reductions in water supplies that cannot be fully averted through traditional means. Colorado River Basin Water Management assesses existing scientific information, including temperature and streamflow records, tree-ring based reconstructions, and climate model projections, and how it relates to Colorado River water supplies and demands, water management, and drought preparedness. The book concludes that successful adjustments to new conditions will entail strong and sustained cooperation among the seven Colorado River basin states and recommends conducting a comprehensive basinwide study of urban water practices that can be used to help improve planning for future droughts and water shortages.

The central focus of this volume is a critical comparative analysis of the key drivers for water resource management and the provision of clean water – governance systems and institutional and legal arrangements. The authors present a systematic analysis of case study river systems drawn from Australia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, UK and USA to provide an integrated global assessment of the scale and key features of catchment management. A key premise explored is that despite the diversity of jurisdictions and catchments there are commonalities to a successful approach. The authors show that environmental and public health water quality criteria must be integrated with the economic and social goals of those affected, necessitating a 'twin-track' and holistic (cross-sector and discipline) approach of stakeholder engagement and sound scientific research. A final synthesis presents a set of principles for adaptive catchment management. These principles demonstrate how to integrate the best scientific and technical knowledge with policy, governance and legal provisions. It is shown how decision-making and implementation at the appropriate geographic and governmental scales can resolve conflicts and share best sustainable practices.

With increasing water scarcity, pressure to re-allocate water from agriculture to other uses mounts, along with a need to put in place institutional arrangements to promote 'higher value' uses of water. Many developing countries are now experimenting with establishing new institutional arrangements for managing water at the river basin level.This book, based on research by IWMI and others, reviews basin management in six developed and developing countries. It describes and applies a functional theory of river basin management, based on the idea that there is a minimum set of functions required to manage basins effectively and a set of basic conditions that enable effective management institutions to emerge. The book examines the experiences of both developed and developing countries in order to see what lessons can be learned and to identify what constitutes the core of a 'theory of river basin management'. It concludes that although it is difficult for developing countries to adopt approaches and institutional designs directly from developed countries, basic principles and lessons are transferable.