Handbook of Water Resources Management: Discourses, Concepts and Examples

This chapter provides the background and rationale of this handbook. It touches upon the main challenges of contemporary water resources management. It guides the reader through the four distinct parts and 25 chapters of the handbook. The structure of this handbook facilitates different disciplinary and thematic perspectives whereby conceptually the review of ongoing discourses, introduction and analysis of concepts and contexts as well as examples to highlight successes and lessons to be learned provide the framework.

This chapter presents water as a major geophysical phenomenon. Based on the paper ‘Water balance of Earth’ (Kotwicki, Hydrol Sci J 54:829–840, 2009) the role and evolutionary trajectory of water along earth’s history is explained. The hydrological cycle is introduced and the corresponding fluxes and stocks are assessed at global, continental, regional and river basin scales. The concept of water cycle, accounting explicitly for the interaction of the natural phenomena and societal demands is introduced. In large-scale overviews the present and expected future water use balances, possibilities and potential reasons of water scarcity are analysed. Interlinkages with population growth, climate variability and change as well as land use/land cover are emphasized.

This chapter highlights the key dependences, linkages and challenges of water resources management. (Many of these issues discussed are revisited and illustrated in the following chapters.) The first part introduces surface and groundwater management in the terrestrial part of the water cycle. Comprehensive presentations of key hydrological phenomena and processes, monitoring, assessment and control are followed by overviews of dependences, linkages and challenges. The manifold facets of intensive human/resource interaction and inherent threats to the resources base are exposed. Both sections present examples illustrating differing contexts and options for solution. The second part summarizes the main drivers and challenges of contemporary water resources management and governance. It provides a critical overview of different water discourses in recent decades. The role of benchmark and recurring water events, their declarations and intergovernmental resolutions are analyzed, and the key concepts and methods of implementation are discussed.

This text builds on the shared focus of historians and engineers to understand how particular circumstances came to be. In their endeavours, engineers regularly turn attention to the past, many times with the explicit aim to build on the past. In this chapter, it is discussed why these water histories written by engineers are vulnerable to being less correct. Using a range of scholarship on water history and shared experiences within the International Water History Association, we discuss the core of any historical scholarship: a drive to demonstrate and understand the complexity of the past. As such, this chapter wants to warn against the engineering drive to use (water) history as a guide towards the future. Instead, we propose a perspective of history as a way of reading and understanding the complex paths we have travelled until now.

The growing appreciation for the diversity of water values—ranging from the spiritual to the economic—highlights the challenge of making water management decisions that do justice to different and often conflicting values. Water ethics offers a systematic approach to making water management decisions consistent with society’s values, while at the same time holding up the values themselves for critical examination. While the term “water ethics” is rarely encountered in the water literature, water governance best practice reflects key normative value principles including integrity, stewardship, social and environmental justice, ecosystem services and rights of nature. The added value of a systematic approach to water ethics is to render existing norms of water governance more explicit and identify value gaps and synergies. This has been the focus of a recent initiative to formulate a Water Ethics Charter, building on earlier work by UNESCO and the Botin Foundation, and a parallel campaign by Indigenous water protectors to elicit international recognition of culturally diverse ontologies of water. As climate change brings keener awareness of values-based water conflicts, there will be a growing need for new tools of mediation and resolution. The developing field of water ethics can contribute to new solutions.

This chapter covers issues of water law and rights in terms of generic issues. Following an introduction to law, it discusses the origins of water law, how water law is organized, various issues related to the quantity of water (including property rights and priority of use), issues related to the quality of water and environmental concerns and integrated water resource management. It then discusses key issues in transboundary water law, before drawing conclusions about the future challenges to water law.

The water epistemic community discusses water matters and directly or indirectly advises policy and decision makers in ways that reflect its beliefs on one hand, and its agreements and disagreements, on the other hand. It discusses water in ways that reflect the variety of scientific and indigenous backgrounds of its members, the richness of their different expertise, their cultural and social beliefs, practices and aspirations, as well as their ethical, spiritual and religious values. These discourses cover issues as complex as the value of water and the nuances between water security, sustainability and integrated water resources management. They deliberate over statements as sensitive as claims insisting that wars will be fought over water. They examine the impacts of phenomena such as climate change over water and how humans should adapt to it; and the list is as long and vast, as the number of complex issues intertwined with the governance of water. Is water an instrument of peace, or rather the source of (inevitable) conflict? Are water infrastructures good or bad? What are the limits of international law in the management of transboundary water resources? How should one refer to and assist, a person who has been displaced because of water related hazards? This chapter shares with the reader a non-exhaustive selection of such discourses. It sheds the light on a number of expressions, buzz words and polemics that have been overused—sometimes—with a relative indifference of their subtleties.

This is a chapter about the advent and adoption by water scholars of a new term, “water security.” How did this term appear, how is it defined, in which settings does it apply, what are its different facets and interpretations? Has it impacted water management and if so, how? The authors explore the discourse surrounding this term and the persons and institutions that have found it useful, channeled it, challenged it, and popularized it over the past century.

Failure at multiple levels of governance rather than the resource base itself is at the origin of the water crisis. Despite increasing scholarly research on water governance and efforts towards policy reform the overall situation has not substantially improved and major transformations in water governance are yet to be implemented. The chapter summarises and addresses multi-level and multi-sectoral challenges for water governance by reviewing and discussing several key concepts in science and policy. An analysis of basin scale approaches and their effectiveness and a discussion of the importance of scale and of multi-level governance approaches shows that crossing boundaries is essential to tackle complexities of sustainable water governance and management. The concept of the WEF nexus is introduced and critically analysed concerning its potential to overcome sectoral fragmentation and sectoral power imbalances. Crossing boundaries also implies governance across national borders. The sub-chapters on transboundary water management and on global water governance address these international and global dimensions. Overall, the chapter highlights from different perspectives the importance of linking and of governing across scales from the local to the international and global.

In the immediate future, accessible runoff of fresh water is unlikely to increase more than the demand forecasted. It will have an impact on economic growth as it may reduce the per capita income of countries and create water conflicts. Such global threat creates a policy conundrum of how to meet basic needs and maximise the benefits from water resources. This chapter investigates different economic instruments in alleviating water-related risks and dealt with associated impacts.

Every aspect of human activity and development indeed subjects water to a number of pressures at accelerated paces. Rapidly expanding populations, urbanisation, agricultural intensification, increasing energy demand, industrial production, land use changes, along with every infrastructure development works, among others, constitute a complex set of drivers who become source of pressure to the water bodies, and stress to their associated ecosystems. This chapter analyses a number of pressures and how they become sources of stress to water bodies but also on social systems. Thus three additional areas and interconnections (water and migration, water and food security and water and health) are presented to illustrate the associated drivers and pressures which ultimately yield stresses with unwelcome social and natural consequences. Each section ends with suggested actions to be taken in responding to threats and achieving realistic planning and efficient decision making for water management.

Over the past three decades, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has evolved into one of the leading water management paradigms. Revisiting the starting points and the development of the IWRM concept, this chapter critically analyzes the rationales and the major elements to be considered in the framework of IWRM. IWRM is then related to other recently emerging concepts such as adaptive water management and the Resource Nexus. Even though IWRM has been formally adopted almost worldwide for almost two decades, its implementation remains a challenge for many countries. IWRM also became a major research topic in water sciences and beyond, calling for a reflection of its role and impact. Based on theoretical and empirical analyses of contemporary IWRM research, this chapter provides best practice examples of science based implementation and synthesizes the lessons learnt.

Water resources and their properties highly vary in both space and time and their observations have high uncertainties. The characterization of this variability requires long-term spatially distributed observations, that allow the recognition of spatio-temporal patterns and changes. Unlike other engineering activities that typically can be satisfied with a one-time surveying of the designated area prior to the development planning, water management requires continuous monitoring records capturing the historical variability of the hydrological conditions. The need for a sustained data collection often without the immediate use, places water resources management in a difficult position. The justification of operating monitoring networks in the absence of pressing objectives, particularly at long-time scales, is often challenging, but water managers need to convince policy makers that water management decisions require the knowledge of how the hydrological processes varied over time. Without sufficiently long and up-to-date data series, adequate water management planning, ecosystem monitoring, and early warning systems are severely limited.

Freshwater is distributed in a very non-uniform manner on the surface of the earth. Both spatial and temporal variability have a strong influence on water management. In this chapter both mean values and spatial and temporal variability measures of the main hydrological variables, precipitation (rain and snow), discharge, groundwater availability are mapped in order to enable specific evaluation of the regional water management requirements. Besides the natural variables socio-economic factors are also investigated, water availability is presented for the different countries of the world.

Agricultural conversion of land and rapid urbanization are the primary drivers of land cover and land use change (LCLUC) globally, resulting in massive deforestation, drainage of wetlands, effects on the water cycle, alteration of sediment budgets, and acceleration of land degradation and desertification. This has taken place across various spatial and temporal scales. This chapter provides an overview of hydrological impact of land use change at these multiple scales. It also reviews the state of the art in analyzing LCLUC impacts on water quality outcomes and showcases where different techniques have been used to reveal the relationship between the two. Finally, the chapter addresses the impacts LCLUC generated within entire basins can have on delta landscapes, which constitute very dynamic and fragile environments with typically high economic activities and population densities.

Freshwaters are among the most dynamic, diverse, and complex ecosystems globally. Lakes, rivers, and ponds cover about 1% of the Earth’s surface; however, these systems contain 10% of all animals and one-third of all vertebrates. In addition, freshwaters provide a wide range of ecosystem services that are fundamental for human well-being, including clean water, recreation value, and food. At the same time, freshwaters are under immense human pressure due to overexploitation, habitat degradation, invasion, climate change, dam construction, as well as emerging stressors such as light, noise, and synthetic chemicals. Consequently, freshwater biodiversity is declining three to six times faster than biodiversity in marine and terrestrial realms, and ecosystem services are being eroded in unprecedented ways. Globally, wetlands have declined by 75% over the past decades, and out of 242 rivers longer than 1,000 km, only 86 remain free flowing. Hence, one-third of all freshwater species are currently threatened, and global freshwater megafauna populations even declined by 88% from 1970 to 2012. We need to carefully, and fundamentally, rethink future management strategies for freshwater ecosystems due to conflicting interests for conservation and exploitation. Freshwaters must be managed as hybrid systems, i.e., as a resource for human use as well as extremely valuable and diverse ecosystems. Furthermore, we must establish a blueprint of freshwater life to increase awareness about the enormous value of freshwaters and their rich biodiversity. Most importantly, however, we need to preserve the remaining free-flowing rivers, intact wetlands, and unspoiled lakes—for the sustainable benefit of humans and nature alike.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are the world's poorest in terms of total and per capita availability of freshwater resources. Agriculture in the GCC depends mainly on Groundwater (GW), which is generally over-exploited, depleted, and poor quality. Water scarcity severely limits agriculture food production and is a major obstacle to achieving food self-sufficiency. The possibility of using the GCC's abundant energy resources to generate desalinated seawater (DW) or treated wastewater for agriculture offers a partial solution to the water scarcity challenge. The feasibility of the scenario and the interdependent relations between water, energy, and food resources are discussed.

This chapter provides two different kind of examples illustrating the large variety of potential technical and non-technical options of water resources management. The first set of examples focus on protective infrastructures of flood control. Levees, dikes, polders and other alternatives of flood retention, as well as diversion measures of flood flows are discussed. Design principles, advantages and disadvantages are highlighted along with several solution examples. The second example introduces water demand management and its application in context of urban water supply schemes. It is followed by a review of effectiveness of demand management interventions, including water conservation and mechanisms for regulating water demand and price.

This chapter is the collection of several examples, both in thematic and geographical sense, which manifest the need to address water and land management in an integrated way. It reviews irrigation and soil management techniques, performance assessment of irrigation as well as water delivery scheduling for irrigated agriculture. Water scarcity and drought may even jeopardize that irrigation infrastructure could be deployed to offset threatening economic losses. The chapter emphasizes the need for careful afforestation planning to avoid aggravating water shortage downstream. Finally, constructed wetlands are introduced as a low cost wastewater treatment technology with other positive spin off effects.

The fundamental concepts in the field of water-energy systems and their historical evolution with emphasis on recent developments are reviewed. Initially, a brief history of the relation of water and energy is presented, and the concept of the water-energy nexus in the 21th century is introduced. The investigation of the relationship between water and energy shows that this relationship comprises both conflicting and synergistic elements. Hydropower is identified as the major industry of the sector and its role in addressing modern energy challenges by means of integrated water-energy management is highlighted. Thus, the modelling steps of designing and operating a hydropower system are reviewed, followed by an analysis of theory and physics behind energy hydraulics. The key concept of uncertainty, which characterises all types of renewable energy, is also presented in the context of the design and management of water-energy systems. Subsequently, environmental considerations and impacts of using water for energy generation are discussed, followed by a summary of the developments in the emerging field of maritime energy. Finally, present challenges and possible future directions are presented.

Mining operations interact with water in complex ways. Ore is essential for society while water is an essential input for the extraction and processing of orebodies. Mining can pose threats to surrounding water bodies. Increasingly, mining companies, investors and governments recognize water as a key risk to expansion of the sector, with projects increasingly constrained by a lack of water, too much water, or social opposition over impacts to water. Issues associated with water and mining are set to intensify. Average ore grades are declining such that, without technological change, future mining operations will require more water and energy to process and generate greater quantities of waste material. This chapter summarizes water and mining challenges as they relate to diverse stakeholders. The industry’s journey from Mine Water Management to Mine Water Stewardship is described, and key advances in mine water accounting and reporting practices are emphasized. An organizing framework is proposed to distinguish research needs across spatial scales and at different stages of the mine life cycle. There is a need for heightened attention to mine water issues as they relate to linked sites in mining regions, and during exploration and mine closure phases. Interdisciplinary thinking is required that considers how humans interact with both natural and engineered mine water systems.

Water-related hazard events are extreme hydrological phenomena that cause loss of lives, injuries, damage to properties, socio-economic and environmental impacts. Damage can be reduced by using control and mitigation measures that can be classified as structural and non-structural measures. This chapter introduces several, even seldom considered hazards. Floods being swift and devasting events receive a special attention. Flood flow computation can be carried out by using hydrological and hydrodynamic models for flood prediction and flood forecasting, etc. Return periods of floods can be determined by probability analysis of extreme events such as maximum streamflow data from past records. The return periods are used as a bench mark in determining the extent of floods for planning and design purposes. Different levels of hazard are considered in estimating the risk level for planning and design of mitigation measures. Vulnerability of population and their assets depends on types of land use, their socio-economic values, exposure and environment. Damage due to extreme events depends on hazard magnitude and types of objects such as population, their assets and infrastructures threatened by these hazards. Risk maps can be drawn to show spatial variation of risk under different magnitudes of hazard and vulnerability. Risk control and adaptation as well as risk sharing are given ample emphasis in this chapter.

The chapter comprehensively discusses the management of groundwater including artificial recharge and the importance of conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater in satisfying demand for water. It reviews different levels of groundwater management, transboundary groundwater management, artificial recharge and its advantages and disadvantages among others. Planning and management of conjunctive use, its advantages and models available for that are also presented.

Reservoirs provide diverse water-related services such as storage for energy production, water supply, irrigation, flood protection and provision of minimum flow during dry periods. When reservoirs are meant catering for multi-purposes, trade-offs and synergies between services provided need to be considered through their proper management and operation. This chapter reviews multipurpose multiunit reservoir systems including their optimum management and tools and decision support systems available for that.

Water management is often facing complex problems, which are particularly challenging to address. But while the term ‘complexity’ has increasingly been used, the concept and its implications for management and governance have often remained unclear. Building on both conceptual and empirical research, this chapter sheds light on complexity in the water field from a management and governance perspective. Analytical concepts of complexity are described and distinguished from related concepts such as ‘wicked’ and ‘uncertain’ problems. Further, three types of approaches to address complex problems are discussed, characterized by various understandings of complexity, governance approaches, and emphasis put on inputs (processes) and outputs (results). The chapter provides examples of addressing complex problems, including installing an Integrated Water Resources Management, implementing a Nexus approach to environmental resources and sectors, and addressing poor water quality within the European Water Framework Directive. The chapter concludes on the future role and design of governance research in addressing complex water management problems.