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This article comments on some of the conclusions drawn by Riley E. Baker in respect to significant causative factors in the economic development of the Great Plains area. The economy of, and the techniques employed within, an area are a part of the aggregate economy, not isolated from it. This situation derives largely from the composite of technological developments associated with improved transportation and increased tendencies toward both individual producer and area specialization. The network of interrelationships is not an easy one to explain. Nevertheless, this difficulty does not warrant simplification merely for ease of explanation. Some passages in Baker's paper explicitly, and others by implication, indicate that he leans toward undue simplification, intentional or otherwise. There has appeared a tendency in recent years to interpret the implications of a vastly expanding technological front in terms of the impacts of a few selected techniques lifted from their functional relationships within the integrated whole. This tendency is probably the inevitable result of preliminary observations of the influences of wide technological advances upon the entire structure of an economy.

This is a review of developments in the management of water resources in terms of administration, technical methods, and financing. Federal, state and local levels are considered. Most procedures reviewed are still being developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the direct income redistributional effects of the irrigation project in Canada. Flow of increased net farm income from the public investments in water development projects; Structure of the potential distribution of benefits from public investment in an irrigation project.

• A new method was developed to quantify the water performance of urban developments. • SUWMBA can inform better urban development and integrated urban water management. • Conflicting objectives need integrated solutions to be simultaneously met. • No one design-technology configuration fits all environmental contexts. • Restoring evapotranspiration to the natural case is easier than other hydrological flows. Historically, little consideration has been given to water performance of urban developments such as "hydrological naturalness" or "local water self-sufficiency". This has led to problems with increased stormwater runoff, flooding, and lack of local contributions to urban water security. Architectural design, water servicing technologies and environmental conditions are each known to influence water performance. However, most existing models have overlooked the integration of these factors. In this work, we asked ' how the water performance of urban developments at site-scale can be quantified, with joint consideration of architectural design, water servicing technologies, and environmental context (i.e. climate and soil) '. Answering this question led to the development of a new method and tool called Site-scale Urban Water Mass Balance Assessment (SUWMBA). It uses a daily urban water mass balance to simulate design-technology-environment configurations. Key features include: (i) a three-dimensional boundary focussed on the "entity" of development (ii) a comprehensive water balance accounting for all urban water flows, (iii) methods that include key variables capturing the interactions of natural, built-environment and socio-technological systems on water performance. SUWMBA's capabilities were demonstrated through an evaluation of a residential infill development case study with alternative design-technology-environment configurations, combining three dwelling designs, seven water technologies and three environmental contexts. The evaluation showed how a configuration can be identified that strikes a balance between the conflicting objectives of achieving the desired dwelling densities whilst simultaneously improving water performance. For two climate zones, the optimal configuration increases the total number of residents by 300% while reducing the imported water per capita and stormwater discharge by 45% and 15%, respectively. We infer that SUWMBA could have strong potential to contribute to performance-based urban design and planning by enabling the water performance of dwelling designs to be quantified, and by facilitating the setting of locally-specific water performance objectives and targets. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the efforts made by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) to develop water infrastructure bank finance authority in the U.S. It says that the water bank was developed by the AWWA Water Utility Council called Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFIA) which aims to provide financial assistance for qualified water-related projects. It mentions several projects which can be financed by WIFIA including water rehabilitation, treatment plants, and distribution system.

This paper show how the UK using classic ideas to tap vast amounts of energy from its modestly sized waterways. Then, we see how Germany is tackling the same problem with new technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on transboundary waters. It states that for a long time, transboundary literature was confined to a consideration on conflict within the setting of a particular river basin, usually between sovereign states, rarely with any solution being offered. One of the recent development in the field of theory concerning transboundary waters is a recent work by the Swedish Foreign Ministry Expert Group on Development Issues (EGDI). It is also observed that there has been interesting foundational work in theory in the field of conflict management and resolution concerning this topic.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Judith Petts which examines the role and nature of social learning in integrated water management.

A list of principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is presented. The first principle states that fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, which is essential to sustain life, development and the environment. The second principle states that water development and management should be based on participatory approach, requiring all leaders in Muslim countries to take part. And, the third says that women plays the central part in the provision, management and safeguarding.

The article states that water management is an integral component of global change, with special reference to the water management process at the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. The water management practices are undergoing a sea change. People are realizing that water can no longer be considered a free good, and that realistic prices have to be paid to access water supply. Aragon has taken steps to manage its water resources in accordance with the conceptual and societal changes in a timely, cost-effective, socially acceptable and environmentally friendly manner. It developed new wastewater treatment plants for water quality management and established a Water Commission, with the participation of the broader society.

Crete, located in the South Mediterranean Sea, is characterized by long coastal areas, varied terrain relief and geology, and great spatial and inter-annual variations in precipitation. Under average meteorological conditions, the island is water-sufficient (969 mm precipitation; theoretical water potential 3284 hm3; and total water use 610 hm3). Agriculture is by far the greatest user of water (78% of total water use), followed by domestic use (21%). Despite the high average water availability, water scarcity events commonly occur, particularly in the eastern-south part of the island, driven by local climatic conditions and seasonal or geographical mismatches between water availability and demand. Other critical issues in water management include the over-exploitation of groundwater, accounting for 93% of the water used in agriculture; low water use efficiencies in the farms; limited use of non-conventional water sources (effluent reuse); lack of modern frameworks of control and monitoring; and inadequate cooperation among stakeholders. These deficiencies impact adversely water use efficiency, deteriorate quality of water resources, increase competition for water and water pricing, and impair agriculture and environment. Moreover, the water-limited areas may display low adaptation potential to climate variability and face increased risks for the human-managed and natural ecosystems. The development of appropriate water governance frameworks that promote the development of integrated water management plans and allow concurrently flexibility to account for local differentiations in social-economic favors is urgently needed to achieve efficient water management and to improve the adaptation to the changing climatic conditions. Specific corrective actions may include use of alternative water sources (e.g., treated effluent and brackish water), implementation of efficient water use practices, re-formation of pricing policy, efficient control and monitoring, and investment in research and innovation to support the above actions. It is necessary to strengthen the links across stakeholders (e.g., farmers, enterprises, corporations, institutes, universities, agencies, and public authorities), along with an effective and updated governance framework to address the critical issues in water management, facilitate knowledge transfer, and promote the efficient use of non-conventional water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual water trade (VWT) is a powerful concept which stimulates fresh thinking about water scarcity and management. It is a potential solution for water-short countries to achieve food security. VWT may also have the potential to play a key role in international negotiations over management of transboundary water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looks at custody transfer utilization in Philadelphia. Background information on the original connections; Problems caused by custody transfer billing; Installation parameters; Guidelines for system development.

This paper uses an empirical approach to explore what motivates the adoption of integrated water resources management (IWRM). The study compares cases of local implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) from five German federal states representing various types of local policy addressees. Data were collected using policy analysis methods, including participatory observation and interviews with planners who had implemented WFD measures and conducted integration attempts of various types throughout the planning processes. The planning narratives on integration were analysed iteratively and its characteristics, drivers, and hampering factors were identified. It was found that policy addressees attempt integration due to the incentives for reaching their goals rather than according to their paradigms. Depending on the power relations, incentives result in the integration of different actors during different planning phases. The findings suggest that in order to strategically induce integration, it would be necessary to enhance the incentives based on a detailed knowledge of power relations. The WFD as a general regulatory framework was found not to be a driver for local integration, but the WFD did induce increased integrated management through setting goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guidelines produced by some major international organisations create a misleading impression that Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) can be implemented in a standardized fashion. However, contextual conditions vary from place to place, and differences in beliefs, attitudes, customs, and norms sensibly influence interpretation and implementation. Experiences with IWRM in Oregon (USA) and Ontario (Canada) are examined with regard to scope, scale, responsibility, engagement, finances and financing, and review processes and mechanisms. Development of IWRM and the evolution of governance have been shaped by different concerns and beliefs. Oregon has adopted a locally-driven and entrepreneurial approach, whereas Ontario developed a co-operative inter-governmental approach. In both cases, IWRM governance has also evolved due to changes in funding and priorities, which have benefitted some catchments and communities more than others. Both cases provide positive examples of reflexivity and resilience, and demonstrate the importance of review processes and strong cross-scale connections for effective governance. While underlying principles may be relevant for other locations, it would be a mistake to think that either of the two approaches for IWRM could be replicated elsewhere in their exact form. Implementation of IWRM in other parts of those countries and the world should, therefore, start with careful analysis of the local context, and existing governance arrangements and governmentalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a well-established goal, but there is little evidence about processes of integration linked to water policies. To address this, in 2016–2018 we used a content analysis, a survey and interviews with key actors leading the creation of plans to implement Europe's Water Framework Directive and the Floods Directive. We explored whether and how implementation of these policies is being coordinated and reflect on implications for integrated water governance. We found a strong emphasis on achieving integration via coordination. Our interviews brought particular attention to the resources and capacities needed to improve collaboration across teams, including but not limited to information-sharing. Our study gives insight into practical approaches that may support coordination and hence integration of different policy goals for water management: however further theoretically-informed study to track these and other processes is required, as work to connect policy integration with IWRM is still in its infancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh is a riverine country with more than 40 major rivers, however, Halda River is of special interest among them in recent time for being the only tidal river in the world that serves as a natural spawning ground for major Indian carps. Besides, this river serves in transportation, source of fresh and irrigation water for Chittagong, livelihood for fishermen, sand-query for the construction sector and so forth. Therefore, an integrated management and development of water, land, and related resources across sectors within its basin, in order to maximize the economic and social benefits derived from water resources is crucial. For this purpose, we used the DPSIRR (Driver-Pressure-Stressor-Impact-Response-Recovery) approach for the whole system of Halda River basin. Primary data were collected through extensive field visits, interviewing the key informants and government officials, and focus group discussions with the local community. Besides, secondary data were collected from the relevant project reports, published research articles and newspapers. In this study, we identified that water pollution, illegal catching of brood fish, excessive sand extraction, withdrawn of water through rubber dam in the upstream, cutting of oxbow bends, use of chemicals and fertilizers in agricultural lands, tobacco cultivation and global climate change are the main drivers affecting the Halda River basin. As a result, the causative effects on ecosystem health of the Halda River include deterioration of water quality, salinity intrusion, loss of agricultural land due to riverbank erosion, decreased amount of fertilized eggs and fish fry, siltation in the river bed. To response these effects, institutions involved with the management of this river has taken some steps although we found very limited long-term strategies and policies for the conservation and restoration of the Halda River ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inter-Basin Water Transfers (IBWTs) are a common approach for managing water scarcity that seeks to take advantage of the regional differences in the variability of water resources. Globally, there is broad interest in evaluating the impact of implemented IBWTs on the ecology of donor and recipient basins. But, there are challenges in how best to represent and evaluate the operational dynamics of the water transfers, (i.e., the timing and volume of transfers). Identifying such strategies is particularly challenging in monsoon-dominated regions because donor and recipient basins receive most of the annual rainfall within a single season. In this study, we evaluate the trade-offs that emerge across alternative water transfer strategies that can be employed when donor and recipient basins both have monsoon dominated rainfall. As India embarks on the (~$75 billion) Interlinking of Rivers Project, we evaluate an IBWT scheme in southern India named Inchampalli-Nagarjuna Sagar link for transferring water from Godavari river basin to Krishna river basin. The objectives used to generate and evaluate alternative water transfer strategies are reliability, resilience, and, vulnerability of demand satisfaction, reliability of flood protection and minimum environmental flows. We employ many-objective robust decision making method (MORDM) to characterize the trade-offs between flooding protection, water demands, and environmental flows as well as their robustness to a changing climate and human demands. Within the MORDM framework, three variants of the problem are explored. The first is an intertemporal formulation where the optimized strategy is defined as a sequence of monthly water transfers, assumed to be fixed year to year similar to the operation of proposed transfer. Based on the diagnostics of the intertemporal results, we found that the driving factors for the transfer volume are demand and storages in the reservoir. Accordingly, two other variants of direct policy search (DPS) formulations are defined where the decision to transfer water depends upon the storage and demand states of the donor basin, or, on storage and demand states of both donor and recipient basins. DPS strategies are adaptive to the specific states that are observed within the system considered (i.e., a closed-loop control feedback). The strategies generated by optimizing these three formulations under historical uncertainties are further evaluated for changing climate (long-term precipitation and temperature) and demands in both the basins. Results indicate that DPS derived strategies perform significantly better than the intertemporal strategies as long-term climate and demands change. Moreover, strategies that consider the demands and storages in donor and recipient basins simultaneously when deciding upon the amount of water to be transferred outperformed those that only act on donor conditions. The robustness of the proposed transfer from the report of the National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development performs acceptably for approximately 40% of the tested scenarios whereas the best solution of DPS derived strategies attains acceptable performance in 60% of the long-term climate and demand change scenarios. This study strongly highlights the importance of information coordination and feedback between the donor and recipient basins with the help of adaptive strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prediction of river water quality requires accurate quantification of both the overland and the subsequent in-stream processes. Therefore, there is an emerging need for the development of integrated water quality models that effectively couple catchment and instream biogeochemical processes. In this study, we developed an integrated catchment-instream water quality model system called AquaSys. AquaSys couples the spatially distributed hydrological model SPHY (Terink et al., 2015), the non-point source model WEISS, and the instream hydrodynamic and water quality model WASP (Ambrose et al., 1988). The SPHY and WEISS models simulate flow and water quality boundary conditions which are automatically written to a WASP model describing the instream water quality processes. The integrated model system can simulate irrigation and the influence of hydraulic structures, allowing it to be used in catchments largely affected by anthropogenic activities.In this study the AquaSys model system was applied to the Baiyangdian Basin, North of China. 5-years hydrological and water quality monitoring data in 6 stations, provided by Chinese National Environmental Monitoring Centre were used for model calibration and validation. Results showed that the PBias of water quality state variables, including CODMn and ammonia (NH3-N) at more than 80% of the stations were less than 30%, indicating the good water quality forecast capability and applicability of AquaSys. The Baiyangdian AquaSys model provides near real-time forecasts of discharge and water quality along the river network of the catchment based on weather predictions. Additionally, the model allows simulating impact scenarios that provide insights for taking environmental management decisions. In the future the model could be improved by taking into account real-time water quantity and quality monitoring information provided by the newly-built national automatic monitoring stations, which would further increase the accuracy of the water quality predictions.ReferencesTerink, W., A.F. Lutz, G.W.H. Simons, W.W. Immerzeel, P. Droogers. 2015. SPHY v2.0: Spatial Processes in HYdrology. Geosci. Model Dev., 8, 2009–2034, doi:10.5194/gmd-8-2009-2015Ambrose, R.B. et al. 1988. WASP4, A Hydrodynamic and Water Quality Model--Model Theory, User's Manual, and Programmer's Guide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]