Old and New: Changing Paradigms in Arid Lands Water Management (original) (raw)

Water management in arid and semi-arid regions: interdisciplinary perspectives

2006

Water deficiency in many arid and semi-arid regions in Southern Europe is becoming a major constraint for economic welfare and sustainable regional development. These water-deficient regions are characterized by high spatial and temporal imbalances of water demand and supply, seasonal water uses, inadequate water resources and poor institutional water management. Appropriate strategies and guidelines for water management are necessary for the formulation and implementation of integrated sustainable management of water resources. The recently adopted Water Framework Directive (WFD) clearly demonstrates the EU's intention to respond to this challenge through an integrated multi-objective approach for water management. There is a clear need to develop and evaluate strategies for integrated water resources management (IWRM) in Southern European water-deficient regions through multiperspective approaches that take into account economic, technical, social, institutional and environmental constraints. In particular, there is a pronounced need to learn to cope with rapid social changes, efforts for economic development and escalating water demands in a continuously changing environment. The aim of this book is to present the culmination of results from the ARID Cluster of projects, which examine water scarcity and demand in arid and semi-arid regions, as well as participatory and adaptive approaches for appropriate management strategies. Experience and lessons learned are derived from various case studies, which examine competing water use patterns, comparing governance structures and how these have evolved in response to scarcity, and structural and non-structural instruments to address water deficiency.

Environmental Management In Arid Regions:The Question Of Water

2010

Only recently have water ethics received focused interest in the international water community. Because water is metabolically basic to life, an ethical dimension persists in every decision related to water. Water ethics at once express human society-s approach to water and act as guidelines for behaviour. Ideas around water are often implicit and embedded as assumptions. They can be entrenched in behaviour and difficult to contest because they are difficult to "see". By explicitly revealing the ethical ideas underlying water-related decisions, human society-s relationship with water, and with natural systems of which water is part, can be contested and shifted or be accepted with conscious intention by human society. In recent decades, improved understanding of water-s importance for ecosystem functioning and ecological services for human survival is moving us beyond this growth-driven, supplyfocused management paradigm. Environmental ethics challenge this paradigm by ext...

A Typology of Economic Instruments and Methods for Efficient Water Resources Management in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

Water Management in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions, 2006

Water scarcity issues are a cause for serious concern in arid and semi-arid regions and existing water shortages are predicted to escalate in both frequency and duration over the next century (UNEP, 2003). Global water consumption grew sixfold between 1900 and 1995, more than double the rate of population growth, and continues to rise with growing farming, industry, and domestic demand. By 2025, the number of countries qualifying as water scarce is anticipated to rise to 35 (from 20 in 1990). Given that water provides one of the most important life-support functions, ensuring food security through agricultural production and enabling the existence of all ecosystems, the allocation of scarce surface and groundwater resources in an efficient manner is of paramount importance. The significance of groundwater resources should not be underestimated as this resource represents around 90% of the world's readily available freshwater resources and some 1.5 billion people depend upon it for drinking water. In addition to the quantitative shortages of water resulting from demand and supply imbalances, water scarcity in arid and semiarid regions is further exacerbated by deteriorating water quality caused by point and non-point source pollution. In Europe, industry accounts for 54% of total water consumption, agricultural water use accounts for about 33%, while 13% is used for domestic purposes. The driving forces of water demand are strongly linked with national and international social and economic policies, and additional forces of water shortages are due to natural variability in water

What Do We Know about Water Scarcity in Semi-Arid Zones? A Global Analysis and Research Trends

Water

Water supply is strategic for the development of society. The water distribution in nature follows patterns linked to geographic and territorial issues. Climate fluctuations aggravate shortage problems in semi-arid regions. This study aims to develop a systematic review of research on water scarcity in semi-arid areas through bibliometric methods that allow the analysis of its structure, performance, evolution, and future trends. The methodology considers three phases: (i) literature review, (ii) data cleaning and processing, and (iii) analysis of the research field and future trends. The intellectual structure of water scarcity in semi-arid zones covers 2206 documents with the collaboration of sixty-one countries, distributed in studies carried out in 54 years (1967 to 2021). This field of research has been growing, especially since the 21st century (93.1% of the documents). The countries that study the issue the most are those with high population rates and large consumption patte...

The rapidly changing global water management landscape

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2017

The rapidly changing global water management landscape Rapidly changing global conditions will make water resources management and provision of services increasingly complex-more than ever before in human history. These changing conditions will be precipitated by issues like population (number and structure), urbanization, industrialization, economic development, growth of the global middle class and their increasing aspirations for a better standard and quality of life, environmental quality, ecosystems needs, changing societal attitudes and perceptions, and their interactions. Climate change and fluctuations are already adding extra levels of uncertainty. Continued mismanagement and poor governance practices all over the world spanning several decades have ensured that water security for humankind is at a crossroads at present. Numerous policy and market failures in the water sector have received limited corrective attention from policy makers and governing institutions. The result has been misuse, over-exploitation and contamination of water all over the developed and developing worlds, though their magnitudes and extents vary over space and time. There is an urgent need to formulate and implement future-oriented, business-unusual water policies and strategies that can reform and strengthen public institutions, properly manage urban and rural environments, increase public-and private-sector investments, encourage prompt adoption of available and forthcoming new technologies, consider good management practices irrespective of where they originate, and develop a new generation of capable managers and experts from different disciplines and sectors with good analytical and communication skills. Historically, water management policies and plans have been mostly framed narrowly on a sectoral basis, with very limited consideration of future drivers from other sectors which are likely to affect water management increasingly profoundly, in both quantity and quality. Very seldom have water managers considered addressing societal attitudes and perceptions of water-related issues, and how they are likely to change in the future. The emphasis continues to be on short-term fashionable solutions like Integrated Water Resources Management and Integrated River Basin Management, neither of which has been able to provide sustainable and implementable policies or solutions for macro-and meso-scale projects and programmes over at least two generations. These non-performing concepts will become even more irrelevant in a future world which will be more complex, uncertain and unpredictable. Future water problems cannot be solved by using past paradigms and experiences that have not proven to be effective (Biswas & Tortajada, in press). The dynamics of the human future will be determined not by any single issue but by the constant interactions between a multitude of them. Increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, globalization and human aspirations will require more economic and equitable development and improved management of natural resources. Ensuring food, energy and environmental security will require better and continually improving water governance over the long term. The common requirements for all the realistic solutions must include larger and more efficient investments, use of more knowledge, technology and expertise from all disciplines, functional institutions and legal systems, and intensified cooperation between countries. The interrelationships between these issues are global in character. Accordingly, they are likely to be best understood and appreciated within a global framework. While the interrelationships may be global, within this there must be a wide variety of efficient and coordinated national and

Agricultural water use and management in arid and semi-arid areas: Current situation and measures for improvement

Annals of arid zone

Water is rapidly becoming scarcer especially in arid and semiarid areas such as Central West Asia and North Africa Region (CWANA), while irrigated agriculture is critical for national and world food security in these regions. Due to huge gaps between crop demands and rainfall, most countries of these regions cannot have productive form of agriculture without assured irrigation supplies. Continues decrease in the surface water resources has put enormous pressure on groundwater resources and as a results; throughout the regions groundwater tables are declining. Since water is the most limited factor in these regions, improving the productivity of existing water resources is an attractive alternative to sustain irrigated agriculture. There is a strong need to educate farmers to shift their thinking from " maximizing crop yields" to " optimizing crop yields". The results show that substantial and sustainable improvements in water productivity can be achieved through integrated farm-resources management. On-farm irrigation water management techniques such as deficit irrigation if coupled with better cropping patterns together with appropriate cultural practices, and improved genetic make-up will help to achieve this objective. Conventional water-management and cropping pattern guidelines, designed to maximize yield per unit area, need to be revised for achieving maximum water productivity. The wide ranges in recorded crop water productivities suggest that agricultural production can be maintained to its current level by using 20 to 40% less water if new water management practices are adopted. This paper reviews the current situation of water scarcity, agricultural water productivity, and suggests options for sustainable management of land and water resources in these regions.

Collection and Protection of Water in Desert Areas and Ways to Prevent Its Progress

This article summaries the effects of water resource advance on the natural science of the arid zones Such hydrological variations caused of a obvious degradation of the situation, secondary salinization and desertification of terrestrial in the whole of basin Such deviations are principally attributable to the waste of water resources The main approaches mandatory to steady the environment and preserve maintainable progress of these basins, include general scheduling, which takes into attention to the benefits of the superior, central and minor scopes, rational spreading and use of water resources, and organization of relations between financial progress and safety of the environment.While climate change occurs over time and place. The global climate image stagnated over the last 2000 years. Therefore, the current desirability phenomenon should be attributed to human intervention and the application of new technology, not to drought. Although this is not the reason why the long-term drought has not accelerated desertification. Problems caused by mismanagement of water resources in different land testing systems can be solved by appropriately using appropriate water-proofing techniques, water conservation, the use of advanced irrigation solutions, salt control, runoff management and flood control. Made Each of the classified techniques can increase productivity and may stop desertification or change its processes and ultimately lead to degradation. These techniques can be used in seven earth systems. In general, the majority of water resource management techniques mentioned in this article have a light desertification potential. Watershed conservation, desalination and drainage control and agriculture are exceptionally runoff and have a moderate to high potential for land degradation. Most of the techniques used in centralized or semi-centralized utilization systems are good start ups and high returns, and their costs are modest to high Keywords: Water Extraction, Desertification, Water Conservation, Water Resources Management, Degradation; Drylands; Land degradation; Sustainable land management; combat desertification