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This volume provides an analytical and facts-based overview on the progress achieved in water security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region over during the last decade, and its links to regional development, food security and human well-being. Although the book takes a regional approach, covering a vast of data pertaining to most of the LAC region, some chapters focus on seven countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru). A full understanding of LAC’s trends progress requires framing this region in the global context: an ever more globalized world where LAC has an increasing geopolitical power and a growing presence in international food markets. T...
This book is about the issues, challenges and directions currently faced by water as a key resource for mankind. The book aims at providing a finer understanding of the water regulatory future. The contributions in this book are grouped around specific themes. In Part I, the contributions address the water challenge to public international law. In Part II, the authors explore the most pressing ethical, legal, and social issues. In Part III, the discussion covers the economic drivers shaping the future of water.
The world’s freshwater supplies are increasingly threatened by rapidly increasing demand and the impacts of global climate change, but current approaches to transboundary water management are unsustainable and may threaten future global stability and international security. The absence of law in attempts to address this issue highlights the necessity for further understanding from the legal perspective. This book provides a fresh conceptualisation of water security, developing an operational methodology for identifying the four core elements of water security which must be addressed by international law: availability; access; adaptability; and ambit. The analysis of the legal framework of ...
This volume reviews the evolution of ten years’ learning and discovery about water scarcity, livelihoods, and food security within the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food. It draws on the experiences of over 100 projects conducted in ten river basins in the developing world. The book describes how the program’s design evolved from an emphasis on water scarcity, water productivity, and water access to an emphasis on using water innovations to improve livelihoods and address development challenges in specific river basins. It shows how the research was used to foster change in stakeholder behavior, linking it to improved knowledge, attitudes, and skills, which were fostered by stakeholder participation, innovation, dialogue, and negotiation. The authors describe development challenges, their drivers and their political context, how to address them through technical, institutional, and policy innovations; and the consequences of change at different scales, time frames on equity, resilience, and ecosystem services. Overall, the work represents a major synthesis and landmark publication for all concerned with water resource management and sustainable development.
With contributions from over 30 international legal scholars, this topical Research Handbook on International Food Law provides a crucial and reflective examination of the rules, power dynamics, legal doctrines, societal norms, and frameworks that govern the modern global food system. The Research Handbook analyses the interlinkages between producers and consumers of food, as well as the environmental effects of the global food network and the repercussions on human health.
Integrated 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, integrated water resources management is perceived to be a useful utopia, whose value lies more in the steps that need to be taken to make it a reality than in achieving its ever-elusive end goal.
The central focus of this volume is a critical comparative analysis of the key drivers for water resource management and the provision of clean water – governance systems and institutional and legal arrangements. The authors present a systematic analysis of case study river systems drawn from Australia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, UK and USA to provide an integrated global assessment of the scale and key features of catchment management. A key premise explored is that despite the diversity of jurisdictions and catchments there are commonalities to a successful approach. The authors show that environmental and public health water quality criteria must be integrated with the economic ...
Water security has received increasing attention in the scientific and public policy communities in recent years. The Handbook on Water Security is a much-needed resource that helps the reader navigate between the differing interpretations of water security. It explains the various dimensions of the topic by approaching it both conceptually and thematically, as well as in relation to experiences in different regions of the world. The international contributors explore the various perspectives on water security to show that it has multiple meanings that cannot easily be reconciled. Topics discussed include: challenges from human security to consumerism, how trade policies can help to achieve water security in a transboundary setting, the potential of risk-based governance arrangements and the ecology of water security. Scholars and postgraduate students in the social sciences working on water-related issues will find this book to be of substantial interest. It will strongly appeal to policymakers and practitioners looking at the strengths and limitations of water security.
The impacts of human-induced climate change are largely mediated by water, such as alterations in precipitation and glacial melt patterns, variations in river flow, increased occurrence of droughts and floods, and sea level rise in densely populated coastal areas. Such phenomena impact both urban and rural communities in developed, emerging, and developing countries. Taking a systems approach, this book analyzes evidence from 26 countries and identifies common barriers and bridges for local adaptation to climate change through water resources management. It includes a global set of case studies from places experiencing increased environmental and social pressure due to population growth, development and migration, including in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America. All chapters consider the crosscutting themes of adaptive capacity, equity, and sustainability. These point to resilient water allocation policies and practices that are capable of protecting social and environmental interests, whilst ensuring the efficient use of an often-scarce resource.
The Mekong Basin is home to some 70 million people, for whom this great river is a source of livelihoods, the basis for their ecosystems and a foundation of their economies. But the Mekong is also currently undergoing enormous social, economic, and ecological change of which hydropower development is a significant driver. This book provides a basin-wide analysis of political, socio-economic and environmental perspectives of hydropower development in the Mekong Basin. It includes chapters from China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Written by regional experts from some of the region's leading research institutions, the book provides an holistic analysis of the shifting socio-political c...