Description
Book SynopsisIntegrated water resources management advocates a coordinated approach for managing water resources in a way that balances social and economic needs with concern for the environment. While potentially useful, integrated water management is also controversial. Supporters believe that the multi-dimensional nature of water can only be understood and managed from a holistic perspective, while critics often argue that integrated water management lacks suffi ciently well-defi ned rules for its practical implementation. This book, written by academics, users and practitioners, provides a down-to-earth approach to the ideal of integrated water resources management, drawing from conceptual frameworks and real-life practice to identify the key aspects that are yet to be resolved. As such, it examines the role of water accounting, food trade, environmental externalities and intangible values as key aspects whose consideration may help the water management community move forward. Overall, integrat
Table of ContentsSection 1. Introduction and international perspectives: 1. Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM): The international experience 2. Integrated Water Resources Management: State of the art and the way forward 3. Non-Integrated Water Resources Management 4. Contemporary responses to water management challenges 5. Water policy, agricultural trade and WTO rules Section 2. Integrated Water Resources Management: Lessons learnt in Spain: 6. Virtual water trade, food security and sustainability: Lessons from Latin America and Spain 7. Ten years of the Water Framework Directive in Spain: An overview of the ecological and chemical status of surface water bodies 8. Intensive groundwater use in agriculture and IWRM: An impossible marriage? 9. Future Institutions? On the evolution in Spanish institutions from policy takers to policy makers 10. Urban water, an essential part of Integrated Water Resources Management Section 3. Selected case studies on Integrated Water Resources Management: 11. Integrated water resources in Peru – The long road ahead 12. Integrated water management in Chile 13. Towards IWRM in the upper Guadiana basin, Spain 14. Water resource vulnerability & adaptation management to climate change & human activity in North China 15. Blue water transfer versus virtual water transfer in China – with a focus on the South-North Water Transfer Project 16. The institutional organization of irrigation in Spain and other Mediterranean countries
