scope:

Preface

Water is one of the important elements for the survival of living beings. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962 changed the public view on water concerns. This book is often cited as the beginning of the modern environmental movement in general and for water problems in particular. The book describes the story of a lovely rural town that suddenly suffers blight, sickness, and death because people had unwittingly poisoned themselves. Carson explains how the strongest bugs survive, making stronger pesticides necessary, and that DDT, though scarce in the water, becomes concentrated as it works its way up the food chain - from plankton to fish to birds and so on. Her message that humans cannot totally control nature, or eradicate species we do not like-at least not without harmful side effects came through clearly. She advocated integrated management: using a minimum of chemicals combined with biological and cultural controls. In Silent Spring* (1962) she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world. It was later discovered how DDT (and other pesticides) travel from one end of the world (like India and Pakistan where it is used without discretion) to the tribal people in Northern Canada (where DDT has been banned since 1970s) causing negative health impacts.

Although, the UN Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972 did mention the need for coordination of UN bodies and governments on water resource management, yet the next major milestone in water management was the UN sponsored conference on water at Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1977. This meeting focused on the principles for water management and planning. Significant advances have been made for the process of water management since then at the Dublin Conference and the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. The next major stepping stone for the water problems was the 'United Nations Millennium Declaration' in September 2000. The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution No. 55/2 where the UN's members proclaimed inter alia that no effort would be spared to eradicate the "abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion [people] are currently subjected." To give this declaration substance a set of targets was agreed for the year 2015, including the goal of reducing the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by half by 2015.

However, like food, water availability is not matched by equal access for all regions or all people. Freshwater is unevenly distributed geographically and temporally, resulting in surpluses for some people and a threat of severe water insecurity for others. For example, Canada has 120,000 m3 per capita per year of renewable water resources compared with Jordan's 300 m3. The importance of overcoming such constraints to water development and management in the world's poorest nations has been increasingly recognized and proclaimed.

With the increase in demand for water and decreasing water quality and quantity, water has become one of the major issues and problems in the world today. As pointed out by Gleick and others, instead of continuing to adapt to increasing water demand it is time to adopt to the idea that water is a finite and vulnerable water resources and that excessive withdrawal from natural water bodies is exponentially costly and is likely to cause considerable harm to the ecosystems' functioning and downstream areas.

Even though all the scientific and technical problems have not been fully understood water science, in general, is quite developed. On the other hand the social and economic sides are still evolving. This book deals with some of the scientific aspects and has a few chapters on governance and best management practices. The chapters show that good governance, policies for effective conservation and with public participation are important for water use. There are a lot of examples of Best Management Practices all over the world - for effective and efficient use of water, community-based programs in North America, Asia and Africa, some of the South African examples are quite innovative. Thailand has developed a concept of land-use plan associated with water usage. This book gives details of two case studies - one in India which is an example of communitybased management and one in the United States. Although, each country needs a national plan and each region needs a local solution - lessons can be learnt in general from other case studies in the world.