Book Description

The quality and availability of fresh water are of critical importance to human and ecosystem health. Given its central role in the functioning of all living systems, water is arguably the most important of all natural resources.

Produced biennially, The World's Water provides a comprehensive examination of issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. It offers analysis of the most significant trends worldwide along with the most current data available on a variety of water-related topics. This 2000-2001 edition features overview chapters on:

• water as a human right
• water and food
• desalination
• stocks and flows of fresh water
• international watersheds and water-related conflicts
• water reclamation/recycling
• the removal of dams

The World's Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources and the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with them. It is an essential reference for water resource professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use. ... Read more

Book Description

You drink it, wash in it, cook with it, bathe in it, swim in it, float on it, make your morning coffee with it. The Earth is 70 percent water, and so is the human body.

For many of us, water is so ubiquitous that it is easy to waste or take for granted. But we do so at our own peril. Humanity is putting greater demands on this precious, limited resource than ever before.

Around the world, one billion people lack access to clean water. Droughts, floods, and waterborne diseases kill tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people (mostly children) every year. And huge multinational corporations see a profit opportunity unparalleled even by oil or gold. From Bolivia to Britain, water supplies are being privatized and sold for profit, cutting millions off from the single most crucial human need.

Meanwhile, consumers in industrialized countries such as Italy, Britain, Australia, and the United States eagerly drink millions of liters of bottled water every day--some of which is less pure than the stuff flowing from their taps at home--at a cost of about one thousand times what tap water costs. In America, beef-flavored bottled water for dogs is sold; in Nigeria, you can buy a bottle of water guaranteed to make men more virile.

Why are the politics of water so skewed, and what’s being done about it? This book explores the problems and the solutions, and provides resources for ordinary readers to get involved. ... Read more

Book Description

The book provides comprehensive information on possible applications of remote sensing data for hydrological monitoring and modeling as well as for water management decisions. It is intended to provide methods to support the readers in solving their own problems in hydrology and water management. Mathematical theory is provided only as far as it is necessary for understanding the underlying principles. The book is especially timely because of new programs and sensors that are or will be realized. ESA, NASA, NASDA as well as the Indian Space Agency and the Brazilian Space Agency have recently launched satellites or developed plans for new sensor systems that will be especially pertinent to hydrology and water management as are the new large-scale groundbased weather radar systems. New techniques will be presented whose structures will differ from conventional hydrological models due to the nature of remotely sensed data. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

request
ihave real interest in this book,but my budget is very boor
can you please send it to me am Ph.D studant ... Read more

Book Description

Experience has shown that structural solutions for water diversion, conservation, and transfer are not always the most efficient and economically sound alternatives. New, non-structural means of solving problems must be used to guarantee safe and efficient allocation of water to domestic, agricultural, and industrial customers.Focusing on conflict resolution, Water Resources Systems Analysis discusses systematic approaches for the mathematical modeling of various water resources issues, helping decision-makers allocate water effectively and efficiently. Readers will gain an understanding of simulation, optimization, multi-criterion-decision-making, as well as engineering economics and time series analysis, all necessary for successful water resources systems analysis. The book explores recent developments in surface and groundwater systems optimization and modeling, and relates these to real field applications and case studies.Supported by essential mathematical tools, this book gives current and future hydrologists, water resources managers, and civil engineers a logical reference for prioritizing and addressing critical issues such as flood control, power generation, and water quality management. ... Read more

Book Description

Wastewater Reuse for Golf Course Irrigation, authored by leading researchers and practitioners, covers a wide range of technical and regulatory aspects of how and why to irrigate golf courses with reused wastewater. Water quality, water conservation, regulations, water rights, water delivery, design of systems, monitoring concerns, retrofitting a course for recycled water, and successful case studies are just some of the important topics covered in this informative, valuable book. California, Arizona, and Florida are a few of the states that have laws mandating the uses of reused wastewater. This book will help golf course superintendents, irrigation consultants, architects, and builders understand how it affects their job and what to do about it. ... Read more

Book Description

A dramatic environmental saga unfolds in John Hart's compelling story of the fight to save Mono Lake. This ancient inland sea, in the eastern Sierra near Yosemite National Park, is among the oldest in North America. But over the past fifty years, as its feeder streams were steadily drained to supply water to ever-growing, ever-thirsty Los Angeles, the lake's water volume eventually was reduced by half. Mono Lake's bizarre but productive ecosystem began to collapse: salinity greatly increased, nesting and migrating birds were threatened, and fierce alkali dust storms became a common occurrence. Then, in the mid-1970s, a handful of people, most of them students with minimal financial resources, began a campaign to save the dying lake. They took on not only Los Angeles but the entire state government and a whole way of thinking about water. Their fight seemed doomed in the beginning, but long years of grassroots education and effort finally paid off. In 1994, the California Water Resources Control Board ruled that Los Angeles's use of Mono Lake's waters be restricted. Over time, the lake will return to a healthy condition. John Hart integrates natural, social, and political history into a story that is a source of hope for anyone concerned about the environment. Storm over Mono demonstrates the important role of science in public policy debates and validates the concept of the public trust, the idea that certain things belong to us all, not metaphorically but in simple legal fact. Complementing Hart's narrative are 32 stunning color photographs by a dozen leading nature photographers, along with numerous black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and maps. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Brilliant Historical Research that Reads like Fiction
I guess I may be a little biased because I was one of the primary sources for the book, but with some very minor issues, it is the most accurate re-telling of a story that should have been turned into a film. If you want to read a GREAT legal story that is also a true story, this is an excellent read. Oh yeah, it also has the obligatory beautiful photographs of Mono lake. Seems that lake doesn't know how to take a bad photograph! :-) ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Entertaining and technical
I was asked to review this book for fellow classmates back in grad school, and I'm glad I did. Not just entertaining in making the physics, economics, and politics of groundwater interesting, the book is thorough in it's treatment of technical issues which make it valuable insight for engineers, planners, public officials, and anyone else concerned with the limited resource of fresh water. Compared to many engineering textbooks on similar subjects, this book deserves a 5 (along with "Battling the Inland Sea" and "The Great Thirst"). ... Read more

Amazon.com

A brilliant study of how ancient the social and technical aspects of water management systems in Bali, inextricably bound with nature and religion, were undermined by the Green Revolution in the 1970s. Recommended. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Where the Green Revolution failed, golf may succeed
A brilliant study of how the ancient social and technical aspects of water management systems in Bali, inextricably bound with nature and religion, undermined the Green Revolution in the 1980s. Highly recommended

Vital coverage of development, technology, society, states
Lansing shows, through Balinese irrigation, that technology is simultaneously social and political, but often not in the ways imagined by Western academics and development experts. A dispersed system of water temples and priests successfully managed the irrigation of multiple valleys and plots through a process in which ritual served the regulatory function of feedback. Development projects decoupled the elements of the system and led to declining yields and increased pest damage. A computer simulation of the system was eventually developed, which effectively translated the system functions into a media that development experts could understand, and led to repairs to the damage done to agriculture following the implementation of Green Revolution techniques, revealing the role of ideology in presumably technical knowledge. The study also disproves Wittfogel's hypothesis that "oriental despotism" or extremely hierarchical and centralized states grew out of the expansion and control of irrigation systems. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description

As the Mississippi and other midwestern rivers inundated town after town during the summer of 1993, concerned and angry citizens questioned whether the very technologies and structures intended to "tame" the rivers did not, in fact, increase the severity of the floods. Much of the controversy swirled around the apparent culpability of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the builder of many of the flood control systems that failed.In this book, Todd Shallat examines the turbulent first century of the dam and canal building Corps and follows the agency's rise from European antecedents through the boom years of river development after the American Civil War. Combining extensive research with a lively style, Shallat tells the story of monumental construction and engineering fiascoes, public service and public corruption, and the rise of science and the army expert as agents of the state.More than an institutional history, Structures in the Stream offers significant insights into American society, which has alternately supported the public works projects that are a legacy of our French heritage and opposed them based on the democratic, individualist tradition inherited from Britain. It will be important reading for a wide audience in environmental, military, and scientific history, policy studies, and American cultural history. ... Read more

Book Description

The world’s freshwater resources are coming under growing pressure through such environmental hazards as human waste, urbanization, industrialization, and pesticides. The problems are exacerbated through drought in many parts of the world. The improvement of the water quality itself and access to it have been major concerns for politicians and development agencies for over a decade. First officially formulated at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, they have been restated or expanded since then.

The UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 transformed general guidelines into specific targets. The international community pledged "to halve by 2015 the proportion of people who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water" and "to stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources, by developing water management strategies at the regional, national and local levels, which promote both equitable access and adequate supplies." Thus, ten years after Rio it is time to take stock.

Based on the collective inputs of 23 United Nations agencies and convention secretariats, this Report offers a global overview of the state of the world’s freshwater resources. It is part of an on-going assessment process to develop policies and help with their implementation as well as to measure any progress towards achieving sustainable use of water resources.

Generously illustrated with more than 25 full-color global maps and numerous figures, the report reviews progress and trends and presents seven pilot case studies of river basins representing various social, economic and environmental settings: Lake Titicaca (Bolivia, Peru); Senegal river basin (Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea); Seine Normandy (France); Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe (Estonia, Russia); Ruhuna basin (Sri Lanka); Greater Tokyo region (Japan); and Chao Phraya (Thailand). It assesses progress in 11 challenge areas, including health, food, environment, shared water resources, cities, industry, energy, risk management, knowledge, valuing water and governance. Proposing methodologies and indicators for measuring sustainability, it lays the foundations for regular, system-wide monitoring and reporting by the UN, together with the development of standardized methodologies and data.

With its comprehensive maps, glossary, references and coverage of a broad range of themes and examples of real-world river basins, the UN World Water Development Report will no doubt prove to be a most valuable reference work. ... Read more

Book Description

Skillful hunters beautiful in flight, Prairie Falcons inhabit the rocky cliffs of the American West. These raptors range from southern Canada and northern North Dakota to Baja California, Arizona, New Mexico, western and northern Texas, and southeastern Coahuila, Mexico.This is the first book for a wide audience devoted exclusively to the Prairie Falcon. Stanley Anderson and John Squires cover all aspects of the falcon's life history from mating and rearing young to hunting behaviors and the yearly migration cycle. They provide complete descriptive characteristics for identifying Prairie Falcons and also compare them to other raptors, especially the closely related Peregrine Falcon.In addition, the authors recount the long association of falcons with people, which may extend back as far as 2000 B.C. They describe the practice of falconry from the Middle Ages until today. And they assess the threats to Prairie Falcons posed by human activities, from pesticide use and destruction of habitat to disruption of the breeding cycle by careless birdwatchers. ... Read more

Book Description

The quality of our water—especially drinking water—is becoming an increasingly important issue. Andreas Schulz uses a groundbreaking photographic process to make the quality of various kinds of water instantly visible to the non-specialist.

Through "crystal pictures," he demonstrates that water from different locations and treated in different ways will display substantially different characteristics. The quality of mountain spring water, for example, is different from water taken from a metropolitan system or from an old well. Water is affected by the way it flows—say, whether it is channeled through straight or bent pipes.

Using water samples from many parts of the world, this remarkable and beautiful book provides a unique insight into the world of water—its life cycles, its nature, and its structures. ... Read more