This book discusses how emerging groundwater risks under current and potential climate change conductions reduce available groundwater resources for domestic use, and agriculture and energy production. The topics discussed throughout this book are grouped into five sections; (i) Sea Level Rise, Climate Change, and Food Security, (ii) Emerging Contaminants, (iii) Technologies and Decision Support Systems, (iv) Surface Water-Groundwater Interactions, and (v) Economics, and Energy Production and Development. This book is unique and different from other groundwater hydrology books in that it uses a holistic approach in investigating the risks related to groundwater resources. This book will be of interest to a wide audience in academia, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and environmental entities. This book will greatly contribute to a better understanding of the emerging risks to groundwater resources and should help responsible stakeholders make informed decisions in this regard.

The Use of Economics in Implementing European Environmental Policy is a timely exploation of the use of the Choice Experiment and Contingent valuation methods in different parts of Europe in order to inform environmental policy. Koundouri focuses predominantly on water, wetland, forest and agricultural management and her book includes results, both methodological and empirical, from a recent research project.

The High Plains region was once called the Great American Desert and thought to be, in the words of explorer Stephen Long, “wholly unfit for cultivation.” Now we know that beneath the surface, unbeknownst to the explorers and early settlers, lies the Ogallala aquifer, an underground formation that stretches for 800 miles from the Texas panhandle to South Dakota. It holds more water than Lake Huron. Indeed, the Ogallala has been referred to as the sixth Great Lake. It is the water pumped for irrigation from the Ogallala that has enabled a naturally dry region to produce up to 40 percent of America’s beef and 20 to 25 percent of its food and fiber, an output worth about $20 billion. In the forty years since the invention of center pivot irrigation, the High Plains aquifer system has been depleted at an astonishing rate. In 1978 the volume of water pumped from the aquifer exceeded the annual flow of the Colorado River. In Texas, water levels are down 200 feet in some areas. In Kansas, 700 miles of rivers that once flowed year round no longer flow at all. In short, the High Plains may be becoming the desert it was once thought to be. Is it too late to solve the problem? Geographers David Kromm and Stephen White assembled nine of the most knowledgeable scholars and water professionals in the Great Plains to help answer that question. The result is a collection of essays that insightfully examine the dilemmas of groundwater use. From a variety of perspectives they address both the technical problems and the politics of water management to provide a badly needed analysis of the implications of large-scale irrigation. They have included three case studies: the Nebraska Sand Hills, Northwestern Kansas, and West Texas. Kromm and White provide an introduction and conclusion to the volume.

This volume discusses climate change impacts on groundwater quality in arid and semi-arid regions, and provides human health risk assessments due to pollution of surface and groundwater. The book presents recent trends in monitoring groundwater management and implementing pollution mitigation strategies, including practices involving remote sensing and GIS techniques, entropy water quality index, weighted arithmetic water quality index, fuzzy logic applications, and improved irrigation methods. The book also outlines hydrological processes in arid and semi-arid regions and hydrochemical properties of surface and groundwater as a necessary background for understanding how pollution impacts groundwater quality and resources, and how geographical modeling of hydrological processes can aid in human health risk assessments. The book is intended for academics, administrators, policymakers, social scientists, and professionals involved in the various aspects of climate change impact on groundwater quality, hydrological process, pollution mitigation strategies, sustainable development, and environmental planning and management.

This text is written by a number of authors from different countries and disciplines, affording the reader an invaluable and unbiased perspective on the subject of intensive groundwater development. Based on information gathered from the experience of many countries over the last decades, the text aims to present a clear discussion on the conventional hydrogeological aspects of intensive groundwater use, along with the ecological, legal, institutional, economic and social challenges. Divided into two main sections, the first group of authors put forward the positive and negative aspects of intensive groundwater use, whilst a second group provide an overview of the situation specific countries face as a consequence of this phenomenon. Fully revised and up-to-date, Groundwater Intensive Use makes a significant number of discoveries in a subject area that is topical in today's climate.

This book offers essential information on geospatial technologies for water resource management and highlights the latest GIS and geostatistics techniques as they relate to groundwater. Groundwater is inarguably India's single most important natural resource. It is the foundation of millions of Indian farmers' livelihood security and the primary source of drinking water for a vast majority of Indians in rural and urban areas. The prospects of continued high rates of growth in the Indian economy will, to a great extent, depend on how judiciously we can manage groundwater in the years to come. Over the past three decades, India has emerged as by far the single largest consumer of groundwater in the world. Though groundwater has made the country self-sufficient in terms of food, we face a crisis of dwindling water tables and declining water quality. Deep drilling by tube wells, which was once part of the solution to water shortages, is now in danger of becoming part of the problem. Consequently, we urgently need to focus our efforts on the sustainable and equitable management of groundwater. Addressing that need, this book presents novel advances in and applications of RS–GIS and geostatistical techniques to the research community in a precise and straightforward manner.

The book is the first of its kind to deal with almost the entire swath of water resources assessment, development and sustainable management. The idea of the book crystallized during the long journey of the Editors on various facets of water issues in India and abroad during their extended association, at all levels with the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, as well as International Organizations dealing with water. Currently water-stressed, India is likely to become water scarce in not too distant a future. The global freshwater supply and its sustainable use for human consumption, and conservation of the ecosystem have never come under such a rigorous scrutiny before. The unplanned and reckless exploitation of this precious resource have led to a crisis situation, compounded by a real threat of climate change. This book is, therefore, timely and of particular relevance not only to India but the entire world. The book contains 20 chapters, beside the lead article by the Editors. The chapters are contributed by the eminent professionals, researchers, academicians and civil society representatives having an in-depth understanding of the issues. The contents of the chapters have been chosen to represent all aspects of water. The assessment of water resources using satellite data and in-depth analyses of groundwater sector like, the Aquifer Mapping Programme initiated by Government of India, application of gravity satellite data to assess the resource build up, artificial recharge of aquifers and its contamination, are dealt with by eminent experts. The articles on sustainable management of water through good governance by community participation and involvement of civil society are placed. Flood management both through a basin level approach as well as by building resilience in vulnerable areas is discussed. Other critical issues like water bodies management, constitutional provisions, water governance and financial issues, hydro-power and need of research and development in this sector are also dealt with aptly. In view of emerging crisis and complexities in this sector the future pathways and the paradigm shift that is required in administrative and policy level is also discussed.

The book presents and compares practices followed in various different countries for the development, protection and management of groundwater resources. It includes overviews of technical and non-technical aspects of groundwater management practices and selected case studies in different countries. Further it provides reviews of specific technical issues such as groundwater quality management and protection, groundwater impacts of underground structures and hazards of artificial recharge and discharge; discussions of regulatory and legal issues affecting groundwater management.

This paper reviews policy-related issues discussed in recent conferences that will affect groundwater development and management efforts in South Asia. Emphasis is given to policy issues surrounding emerging groundwater depletion and quality concerns, and issues concerning the equitable development of groundwater for poverty alleviation. The paper outlines the range of services that depend on groundwater resources and outlines the range of services that depend on groundwater resources to provide these services, and the complications stemming from the fragmented approach taken to water management throughout the region. A range of responses dealing with the management of the physical system is identified. In conclusion , the paper discusses institutional frameworks through which management responses could be implemented, in relation to both the range of approaches theoretically applicable and the existing institutional frameworks in place throughout South Asia