This book presents papers from an international conference, held in Bonn, Germany in February 2005, that dealt with integrated water resources management in industrialized and developing countries. The papers detail such emerging concepts as blue and green water, virtual water, the water footprints of nations, multi-agent modeling, linkages between water and biodiversity, and social learning and adaptive management.

Assessing the Environmental Impact of Textiles and the Clothing Supply Chain, Second Edition, is a fully updated, practical guide on how to identify and respond to environmental challenges across the supply chain. This new edition features updates to important data on environmental impacts and their measurements, the sustainable use of water and electricity, and new legislation, standards and schemes. Chapters provide an introduction to the textile supply chain and an overview of the methods used to measure environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy footprints, and a lifecycle assessment (LCA) on environmental impacts. This book will be a standard reference for R&D managers in the textile industry and academic researchers in textile science. - Provides a holistic view of the sustainability issues that affect the textile value chain - Explains ways to calculate the textile industry's use of resources, its impact on global warming, and the pollution and waste it generates - Reviews key methods for the reduction of the environmental impact of textile products and how they are implemented in practice - Includes methods for calculating product carbon footprints (PCFs), ecological footprints (EFs) and lifecycle assessments (LCA)

The United Nations World Water Development Report, published every three years, is a comprehensive review providing an authoritative picture of the state of the world's freshwater resources. It offers best practices as well as in-depth theoretical analyses to help stimulate ideas and actions for better stewardship in the water sector. It is the only report of its kind, resulting from the collaboration and contributions of the 26 UN agencies, commissions, program, funds, secretariats and conventions that have a significant role in addressing global water concerns. The news media are full of talk of crises - in climate change, energy and food and troubled financial markets. These crises are linked to each other and to water resources management. Unresolved, they may lead to increasing political insecurity and conflict. Water is required to meet our fundamental needs and rising living standards and to sustain our planet‘s fragile ecosystems. Pressures on the resource come from a growing and mobile population, social and cultural change, economic development and technological change. Adding complexity and risk is climate change, with impacts on the resource as well as on the sources of pressure on water. The challenges, though substantial, are not insurmountable. The Report shows how some countries have responded. Progress in providing drinking water is heartening, with the Millennium Development Goal target on track in most regions. But other areas remain unaddressed, and after decades of inaction, the problems in water systems are enormous and will worsen if left unattended. Leaders in the water sector can inform decisions outside their domain and manage water resources to achieve agreed socioeconomic objectives and environmental integrity. Leaders in government, the private sector and civil society determine these objectives and allocate human and financial resources to meet them. Recognizing this responsibility, they must act now! Two volume set: 336

Released every three years since March 2003, the United Nations World Water Development Report (WWDR), a flagship UN-Water report published by UNESCO, has become the voice of the United Nations system in terms of the state, use and management of the world's freshwater resources. The report is primarily targeted at national decision-makers and water resource managers, but is also aimed at educating and informing a broader audience, from governments to the private sector and civil society. It underlines the important roles water plays in all social, economic and environmental decisions, highlighting policy implications across various sectors, from local and municipal to regional and international levels. Similarly to the first two editions, this report includes a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of several key challenge areas, such as water for food, energy and human health, and governance challenges such as institutional reform, knowledge and capacity-building, and financing, each produced by individual UN agencies.

First published in 1993. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, in June 1992, was a unique event in the annals of international affairs. The ‘Earth Summit’ brought more heads of state and government together than any previous meeting, and five separate agreements were signed by most of the participating governments. It was billed as the world’s greatest opportunity to resolve pressing problems of continuing poverty and environmental destruction and to set the world on a path of sustainable development. Thirty thousand people descended upon the city, and the Summit received a blaze of publicity around the world. Yet despite the vast efforts devoted to it, and the unprecedented press coverage which it received, to many the Earth Summit is still a mystery. The outcome has been labelled as everything from a disastrous fiasco to an outstanding success. Which was it; indeed, what was it? What came out of it? What was actually agreed, and what does it mean for the future of environment and development issues? This book presents a major summary and analysis of UNCED. It explains the background to the conference, its major achievements and disappointments, and the legacy which it has left. Individual chapters examine in detail each of the five main agreements signed at Rio, providing a short description of the negotiating background, analysis of the final text, and the likely implications. This title will be of great interest to students of environmental studies.