Managing water resources is one of the most pressing challenges of our times - fundamental to how we feed 2 billion more people in coming decades, eliminate poverty, and reverse ecosystem degradation. This Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, involving more than 700 leading specialists, evaluates current thinking on water and its interplay with agriculture to help chart the way forward. It offers actions for water management and water policy - to ensure more equitable and effective use. This assessment describes key water-food-environment trends that influence our lives today and uses scenarios to explore the consequences of a range of potential investments. It aims to inform investors and policymakers about water and food choices in light of such crucial influences as poverty, ecosystems, governance, and productivity. It covers rainfed agriculture, irrigation, groundwater, marginal-quality water, fisheries, livestock, rice, land, and river basins. Ample tables, graphs, and references make this an invaluable work for practitioners, academics, researchers, and policymakers in water management, agriculture, conservation, and development. Published with IWMI.

Managing water resources is one of the most pressing challenges of our times - fundamental to how we feed 2 billion more people in coming decades, eliminate poverty, and reverse ecosystem degradation. This Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, involving more than 700 leading specialists, evaluates current thinking on water and its interplay with agriculture to help chart the way forward. It offers actions for water management and water policy - to ensure more equitable and effective use.This assessment describes key water-food-environment trends that influence our lives today and uses scenarios to explore the consequences of a range of potential investments. It aims to inform investors and policymakers about water and food choices in light of such crucial influences as poverty, ecosystems, governance, and productivity. It covers rainfed agriculture, irrigation, groundwater, marginal-quality water, fisheries, livestock, rice, land, and river basins. Ample tables, graphs, and references make this an invaluable work for practitioners, academics, researchers, and policymakers in water management, agriculture, conservation, and development.Published with IWMI.

The degradation of land and water resources resulting primarily from agricultural activities has had enormous impact on human society. In order to alleviate this problem an advanced understanding of the state of our resources and the process of degradation is needed. Conserving Land, Protecting Water includes an overview of existing literature focusing on global patterns of land and water degradation and discussions of new insights drawn from successful case studies on reversing soil and water degradation and their impact on food and environmental security.

This book is the first comprehensive effort to bring together Water, Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) in a way that goes beyond the traditional focus on irrigated agriculture. Apart from looking at the role of water and sanitation for human well-being, it proposes alternative and more locally appropriate ways to address complex water management and governance challenges from the local to global levels against a backdrop of growing uncertainties. The authors challenge mainstream supply-oriented and neo-Malthusian visions that argue for the need to increase the land area under irrigation in order to feed the world’s growing population. Instead, they argue for a reframing of the debate concerning production processes, waste, food consumption and dietary patterns whilst proposing alternative strategies to improve water and land productivity, putting the interests of marginalized and disenfranchized groups upfront. The book highlights how accessing water for FSN can be challenging for small-holders, vulnerable and marginalized women and men, and how water allocation systems and reform processes can negatively affect local people’s informal rights. The book argues for the need to improve policy coherence across water, land and food and is original in making a case for strengthening the relationship between the human rights to water and food, especially for marginalized women and men. It will be of great interest to practitioners, students and researchers working on water and food issues.

Water is a precious resource essential for all forms of life, and although there is plenty of water to meet the demand for the present population – and even for a projected population of 9 billion – there is significant spatial and temporal variation in its distribution. This results in water rich and water poor countries, water-related conflicts, and unsafe drinking water, a major killer identified by the World Health Organization (WHO). Water for Life: Drinking Water, Health, Food, Energy Nexus covers these issues, highlighting the multi-facted uses and importance of water in life: water resources, chemistry of water, drinking water, and the links between water and health, food, irrigation, soil, energy, transport, industry, recreation, disasters, and conflicts. The book is accessible and clear, with technical elements. It is ideal as a background supplementary text to support more specialist study across civil engineering, geography, and social sciences, and will guide readers to see the big picture of environmentally sustainable water management for all human and other biotic lives.

With reference to developing countries.

Water is critical to all human activities, but access to this crucial resource is increasingly limited by competition and the effects of climate change. In agriculture, water management is key to ensuring good and sustained crop yields, maintaining soil health, and safeguarding the long-term viability of the land. Water management is especially challenging on smallholder farms in resource-poor areas, which tend to be primarily rainfed and thus highly dependent on unreliable rainfall patterns. Sustainable practices can help farmers promote the development of soils, plants and field surfaces to allow maximum retention of water between rains, and encourage the efficient use of each drop of water applied as irrigation. Especially useful for farmers' groups, agricultural extension workers, NGOs, students and researchers working with farmers in dryland areas, this comprehensive yet concise book is a practical and accessible resource for anyone interested in sustainable water management.

This publication presents twenty papers delivered at an OECD conference on agricultural research. They highlight recent major progress in agricultural research outcomes and address the challenges that lie ahead.

Water quality and management are of great significance globally, as the demand for clean, potable water far exceeds the availability. Water science research brings together the natural and applied sciences, engineering, chemistry, law and policy, and economics, and the Treatise on Water Science seeks to unite these areas through contributions from a global team of author-experts. The 4-volume set examines topics in depth, with an emphasis on innovative research and technologies for those working in applied areas. Published in partnership with and endorsed by the International Water Association (IWA), demonstrating the authority of the content Editor-in-Chief Peter Wilderer, a Stockholm Water Prize recipient, has assembled a world-class team of volume editors and contributing authors Topics related to water resource management, water quality and supply, and handling of wastewater are treated in depth

This book provides an overview, by leading world experts, on key issues in global water and food security. The book is divided in a series of over-arching themes and sections. The first part of the book provides an overview of water and food security. The second and third sections look at global trade and virtual water trade, and provide some