Water resource management

Community, in the policy context, is defined on the basis of fixed in place socio-political unit having residential proximity to the resource or according to state recognized political units. With the boundaries drawn at the village level and the custodial rights of the common lands vested with various departments of the state, it is difficult on the part of the communities to manage such resources. With the advent of participatory forest management powers have been devolved to the communities for protection and use of the resources. Apart from the institutions at the village level, many of the discussions in recent times have focused on the need for nested institutions at various levels to help conserve and protect large landscapes. The need for nested institutions emerges to resolve conflicts and work towards reshaping the boundaries to establish stable governance of the resource. Despite the regulated use of the resources by community institutions, the resources have tended to ge...

In developing countries, the rapid urbanization in the second half of the twentieth century provoked radical changes in the cities with serious water related problems, such as freshwater scarcity, sewage and drainage problems. This growth produced several impacts on groundwater resources such as land impermeabilization and change in groundwater recharge, excessive exploitation and groundwater pollution. These facts have demanded better planning and management, especially in areas with high dense population. In Brazil, water legislation has been approved by parliament, a water agency has been created and technical knowledge of water resources has improved. Management strategies incorporated several issues: planning, legislation, zoning, licensing, concession and controlling. Monitoring, hydrochemical analyses and groundwater modeling have been performed to obtain more information for better management towards sustainability.

Water resources management is increasingly dealing with competing demands for fixed or diminishing available supplies. In this , the allocation and accounting of water consumption between competing users, including environmental uses, plays a critical role. Various software tools have been developed to cover aspects of water resources planning and allocation, operation, and catchment management. In line with the requirements of water management agencies, attention is turning to the development of integrated tools with a broad range of capabilities that include water resource planning under different climatic and allocation policies, water supply under various operating rules and user behaviour, and catchment management and ecosystem condition assessment under different management regimes. This paper describes a preliminary software structure for water allocation, planning and management, starting from the basic concepts of availability, supply, demand and accounting, and outlining t...

Assessing available water and land for irrigation are important for planning their use. In the watershed, stream flows from some of the rivers are not known and potential irrigable areas have not been identified. By delineating watershed boundary, irrigation suitability factors such as soil type, slope, land cover/use, and distance from the water supply were classified based on the FAO guideline for land evaluation in to S1, S2, S3 and N suitability classes independently. The irrigation potential suitability analysis of soil, slope, land cover/use and Euclidean distance indicates that 55.1 %, 95.6 %, 88.6% and 93.7% respectively are in the range of highly to marginally suitable. By weighted overlay analysis, total surface irrigation suitability potential of the study area is 54.6%, from this, the potential irrigable land obtained by multi_ criteria analysis has 45.9%. The total available flow above abstraction site is 335.7m3/s or 2.9-million-meter cube (MMC) annually.

Currently water resources management is undergoing a major paradigm shift. Water resources management has a strong engineering tradition based on controlling environmental problems with technical solutions. The management of risks relied on the ability to predict extremes and limit their impact with technical means such as dikes, dams and reservoirs. In this paradigm, belief systems, human attitudes and collective behaviours are perceived as external boundary conditions and not as integral part of management. However, the situation has started to change dramatically. Over the past years, integrated water resources management has become the reigning paradigm. The importance of governance and cultural adaptation has become a major issue of concern. At the same time, there is a paucity of adequate scientific concepts that would allow addressing these issues. This paper introduces a concept for social learning developed in the European project HarmoniCOP and discusses its implications for the cultural and institutional context of water resources management. It aims to contribute to the new paradigm of integrated resource management by discussing the importance of processes of culture and social learning for environmental resources management, in general, and water resources management, in particular.

In the current condition, it is difficult to increase plant development and reduce expenses in agricultural sectors; nevertheless, an advanced thought leads to the use of an automated model that introduces automation in the irrigation system, which can aid in improved water and human resources management. An automated model has been developed using sensors and microcontroller technology, to make the most efficient use of water supply for irrigation. A soil moisture content detector is inserted into the soil of the crops, and an ultrasonic sensor is placed above the soil of the crops to measure the water level after irrigation has begun. A C++ program with threshold values for the moisture sensor was used to start the system in the crop field depending on the soil moisture level, and an ultrasonic sensor was used to control the water in the crop field. The Arduino UNO board is a microcontroller inbuilt of Atmel in the mega AVR family (ATMega328) and the sensors were used to lead the model in turning ON/OFF. A microcontroller was included in this model to run the program by receiving sensor input signals and converting them to soil water content and water level values in the crop field. The microcontroller began by receiving input values, which resulted in an output instructing the relay to turn on the groundwater pump. An LCD screen has also been interfaced with the microcontroller to show the percentage of moisture in the soil, field water level, and pump condition. When the soil moisture level reaches 99 percent and the water level reaches 6 cm after 2.5 and 4 minutes, respectively, the pump is turned off. This model, according to the study, might save water, time, and reduce human effort.

Water quality impairment, due to anthropogenic activities and limited enforcement capacity, is a rapidly growing threat to water security as well as public health in developing countries. Cumulative effects of deteriorating water quality undoubtedly put pressure on public health and socio-economic developments. For example, most industries in Ethiopia discharge their effluent directly into freshwater systems without any treatment process. The problem is severe for rivers such as the Awash that pass through major cities. Although there were a few studies that looked into the issue, there is a lack of comprehensive water quality impact assessment on agriculture, health, and socio-economics. This article systematically summarizes current research on water quality issues in the Awash River Basin to generate comprehensive information that captures the water quality status of the river and impacts of water contamination, and identify information and management gaps. Results showed that wa...

This paper provides an integrated approach to the analysis of the geological, hydrological and hydrogeological characteristics of the Cape Flats: a coastal plain sand formed within the mountains of the Cape Town metropolitan area. The study is mainly based on evaluation of available data, on surface water and groundwater, rainfall and selected springs, to describe the Cape Flats aquifer. Qualitative analysis has shown that both surface water and groundwater of the investigated area are of good quality; whereas sources of contamination indicated are restricted to certain parts of the area. Interpretation of hydrogeological data and aquifer parameters revealed that the Cape Flats aquifer has good storage characteristics to support its development for water supply, although the generally unconfined conditions render it highly susceptible to pollution from the surface. From the analysis of long-term climate data in Cape Town, it is evident that fluctuation exists in the pattern of rainfall; this rainfall pattern has implications for recharge and water management issues in the city. Therefore, a conceptual hydrogeological model was developed to elucidate groundwater flow and recharge mechanisms in the Cape Flats.

This paper analyzes the use of transboundary water resources management principles in two key regional water-related agreements in Central Asia: the Agreement on Cooperation in Joint Management, Use and Protection of Interstate Sources of Water Resources (1992) and the Statute of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (2008). These agreements incorporate several internationally recognized transboundary water resources management principles, though there are also some weaknesses. The presence of such principles in these regional agreements offers plenty of hope for the promotion of sustainable water resources management in Central Asia.

... 1991) combined remote sensing technology with ... spatial variation using GIS reduces the uncertainty caused by spatial averaging; for example, change in the land ... These applications ofGIS with water quality models enable management agencies to identify critical areas within a ...