Water Conservation and Wastewater Treatment in BRICS Nations: Technologies, Challenges, Strategies, and Policies addresses issues of water resources—including combined sewer system overflows—assessing effects on water quality standards and protecting surface and sub-surface potable water from the intrusion of saline water due to sea level rise. The book's chapters incorporate both policies and practical aspects and serve as baseline information for future adaption plans in BRICS nations. Users will find detailed important information that is ideal for policymakers, water management specialists, BRICS nation undergraduate or university students, teachers and researchers. - Presents tools and techniques that can be used to preserve water resources, including groundwater and surface water - Provides geophysical methods to quantitatively monitor physical earth processes associated with water resources, such as contaminant transport and ecological and climate change investigations and monitoring - Includes desalination techniques which can solve the issue of scarce drinking water

This book presents case studies that share important experiences regarding Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in various countries. Following an introduction to theoretical concepts, responsibilities, and challenges, the subsequent chapters address, among other topics, an analysis of policies and regulations for water management in Brazil, the drivers that led California to adapt to the IWRM framework, and the international regulations for water markets and water banking in Australia and Chile. The implications of climate change for water resource systems in Mexico are discussed, as well as management strategies from California that could potentially serve as IWRM adaptation schemes in Mexico. Critical cases from Guanacaste (Costa Rica), and from Zayandehrud River Basin and Lake Urmia (Iran) are reviewed in terms of management practices and solutions. The book also provides an overview of the current availability and use of water resources in South Korea, and discusses the management of and international water law instruments for transboundary groundwater in Africa.

This republished Special Issue highlights recent and emergent concepts and approaches to water governance that re-centers the political in relation to water-related decision making, use, and management. To do so at once is to focus on diverse ontologies, meanings and values of water, and related contestations regarding its use, or its importance for livelihoods, identity, or place-making. Building on insights from science and technology studies, feminist, and postcolonial approaches, we engage broadly with the ways that water-related decision making is often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning—and to what effect. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance.

This book assesses the performance of Brazil’s water governance and suggests policy recommendations for strengthening the co-ordination between federal and state water policies and for setting up more robust water allocation regimes that can better cope with future risks.

Updated and revised with many new detailed maps and photographs, Latin America and the Carribbean: A Systematic and Regional Survey, 7th Edition enables geographers to explore the changes and major issues facing this dynamic region today. The historical material has been streamlined in order to focus on contemporary issues. A new chapter was written to focus on Brazil and the Amazonia region. Key environmental issues are highlighted in new boxes throughout the chapters.

Evangelical and Catholic groups are transforming Brazilian politics. This book asks why, and what the consequences are for democracy.

Drought is a slow-onset natural hazard that is often referred to as a creeping phenomenon. The challenge of monitoring drought’s onset and evolution, and identifying its termination or end is one that scientists, natural resource managers, and decision makers have been struggling with for decades. However, drought management must be aimed at reducing the risks of future drought events on economies, the environment, and the social fabric of regions. As with many countries, droughts are often managed as a crisis in Brazil, rather than events for which officials and communities proactively prepare. Although droughts are not new to Brazil, the recent spate of droughts in the poverty stricken semi-arid Northeast and the industrial hub of São Paulo in the Southeast has forced the country to think more seriously about finally changing its drought policies and management approaches. The book is told through the perspectives of the ministers and secretaries, state policy and technical officials, civil society organizations, and development practitioners that helped to facilitate the shift in paradigm in Brazil from crisis management and towards proactive management of droughts. It is written in a style that is appealing to both technical and non-technical audiences, and aims to provide a framework and lessons for other countries to consider when embarking upon similar efforts to improve their own drought policy and management systems.