Changes in Water Resources Systems :
Methodologies to Maintain Water Security and Ensure Integrated Management

Edited by Nick van de Giesen, Xia Jun, Dan Rosbjerg & Yoshihiro Fukushima

IAHS Publ. 315 (2007) ISBN 978-1-901502-19-0 330 + viii pp; price £62.00

As a guiding principle, integrated water resources management (IWRM) is now well established. In the policy arena, IWRM is more or less taken as a given, and IWRM is continuously enriched with new concepts, such as adaptation and transition management. The scientific basis for IWRM, however, has not yet fully crystallized. As this book shows, IWRM is, for an important part, a set of practices and, consequently, case studies play an important part in the scientific literature. This volume specifically addresses changes in water resources systems. The continuously changing pressures on our water resources are diverse: the pressure to produce food and provide household water is of extreme importance in Africa; in Asia, the rapidly emerging economies of China and India show that the need for water of sufficient quality is becoming a development constraint; and in Europe, North America, Australia and Japan, water resources have for a long time been recognized as essential for social well-being, and this recognition is now expressed in institutional changes, such as the European Water Framework. In addition, investment decisions everywhere are made against the background of increasing uncertainty due to ubiquitous changes, such as climate change, economic globalization, and land-use intensification. This diverse set of challenges is met with an equally diverse set of solutions and approaches. This volume provides a good sample of the many of issues that are dealt with in the context of IWRM.

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