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This book addresses groundwater governance, a subject internationally recognized as crucial and topical for enhancing and safeguarding the benefits of groundwater and groundwater-dependent ecosystems to humanity, while ensuring water and food security under global change. The multiple and complex dimensions of groundwater governance are captured in 28 chapters, written by a team of leading experts from different parts of the world and with a variety of relevant professional backgrounds. The book aims to describe the state-of-the-art and latest developments regarding each of the themes addressed, paying attention to the wide variation of conditions observed around the globe. The book consists of four parts. The first part sets the stage by defining groundwater governance, exploring its emergence and evolution, framing it through a socio-ecological lens and describing groundwater policy and planning approaches. The second part discusses selected key aspects of groundwater governance. The third part zooms in on the increasingly important linkages between groundwater and other resources or sectors, and between local groundwater systems and phenomena or actions at the international or even global level. The fourth part, finally, presents a number of interesting case studies that illustrate contemporary practice in groundwater governance. In one volume, this highly accessible text not only familiarizes water professionals, decision-makers and local stakeholders with groundwater governance, but also provides them with ideas and inspiration for improving groundwater governance in their own environment.
This book will provide a comprehensive discussion of groundwater sustainability, including what it is, how its definition has changed over time, why traditional assessments of it are wrong, how assessments of it are ideally multidisciplinary efforts recognizing that policy is more controlling of outcomes than science, and why achieving it is difficult once pumping exceeds sustainable levels of pumping. The book will provide a nontechnical background of hydrogeology relevant to groundwater sustainability and present several case studies from around the United States and the world. The book has been designed to appeal to academics, students, and practitioners. Academics, particularly those just getting into the subject, will find the book a useful entry in terms of management concepts and political realities of attempting to achieve groundwater sustainability. It will also be useful to academics in that the book will include discussions on the history and development of groundwater sustainability and the practical aspects of aspiring to and achieving sustainable production. Although not a textbook, the book could be used as the basis for teaching a course or as a supplement to a hydrogeology or groundwater management class. Accordingly, the book will include questions and additional reading materials at the end of each chapter. This book will also be useful to practitioners through non-technical explanations of the sciences, discussions of the nuances of defining sustainability in aquifers, and the presentation of case studies where sustainable management has failed and succeeded.
This book presents the results of an interdisciplinary project that examined how law, policy and ecological dynamics influence the governance of regional scale water based social-ecological systems in the United States and Australia. The volume explores the obstacles and opportunities for governance that is capable of management, adaptation, and transformation in these regional social-ecological systems as they respond to accelerating environmental change. With the onset of the Anthropocene, global and regional changes in biophysical inputs to these systems will challenge their capacity to respond while maintaining functions of water supply, flood control, hydropower production, water quality, and biodiversity. Governance lies at the heart of the capacity of these systems to meet these challenges. Assessment of water basins in the United States and Australia indicates that state-centric governance of these complex and dynamic social-environmental systems is evolving to a more complex, diverse, and complex array public and private arrangements. In this process, three challenges emerge for water governance to become adaptive to environmental change. First, is the need for legal reform to remove barriers to adaptive governance by authorizing government agencies to prepare for windows of opportunity through adaptive planning, and to institutionalize the results of innovative solutions that arise once a window opens. Second, is the need for legal reform to give government agencies the authority to facilitate and participate in adaptive management and governance. This must be accompanied by parallel legal reform to assure that engagement of private and economic actors and the increase in governmental flexibility does not destabilize basin economies or come at the expense of legitimacy, accountability, equity, and justice. Third, development of means to continually assess thresholds and resilience of social-ecological systems and the adaptive capacity of their current governance to structure actions at multiple scales. The massive investment in water infrastructure on the river basins studied has improved the agricultural, urban and economic sectors, largely at the cost of other social and environmental values. Today the infrastructure is aging and in need of substantial investment for those benefits to continue and adapt to ongoing environmental changes. The renewal of institutions and heavily engineered water systems also presents the opportunity to modernize these systems to address inequity and align with the values and objectives of the 21st century. Creative approaches are needed to transform and modernize water governance that increases the capacity of these water-based social-ecological systems to innovate, adapt, and learn, will provide the tools needed to navigate an uncertain future.
Documents the declining quality and quantity of springs around the world and efforts to preserve, protect, and restore them. Anthropogenic causes, including climate change, have been degrading springs around the world. Changes in spring water quality and flow impact human health, cultural values, ecology, and livelihoods. Threats to Springs in a Changing World: Science and Policies for Protection presents a range of international studies illustrating the causes of spring degradation and strategies being used to safeguard springs both now and for the future. Volume highlights include: Examples of threatened springs in diverse hydrogeologic settings Innovative methods and tools for understanding the hydrogeology of spring systems Current policy and governance approaches for alleviating damage to springs Different approaches to management of springs A call for practitioners, policy makers, scientists, and the public to work together The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals.
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
Using the experiences of large water infrastructure projects involving the transfer of water from basins considered to have surplus water to those where the demand for water has exceeded or is expected to exceed supplies, this book examines case studies within diverse geographical, climatic, economic, and policy regimes.
Australian Deserts: Ecology and Landscapes is about the vast sweep of the Outback, a land of expanses making up three-quarters of the continent – the heart of Australia. Steve Morton brings his extensive first-hand knowledge and experience of arid Australia to this book, explaining how Australian deserts work ecologically. This book outlines why unpredictable rainfall and paucity of soil nutrients underpin the nature of desert ecosystems, while also describing how plants and animals came to be desert dwellers through evolutionary time. It shows how plants use uncertain rainfall to provide for persistence of their populations, alongside outlines of the dominant animals of the deserts and explanations of the features that help them succeed in the face of aridity and uncertainty. Richly illustrated with the photographs of Mike Gillam, this fascinating and accessible book will enhance your understanding of the nature of arid Australia.