The Adaptive Water Resource Management Handbook

by Mysiak, Jaroslav

• ISBN13: 9781844077922
• ISBN10: 1844077926
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The complexity of current water resource management poses many challenges. Water managers need to solve a range of interrelated water dilemmas, such as balancing water quantity and quality, flooding, drought, maintaining biodiversity and ecological functions and services, in a context where human beliefs, actions and values play a central role. Furthermore, the growing uncertainties of global climate change and the long term implications of management actions make the problems even more difficult.This book explains the benefits, outcomes and lessons learned from adaptive water management (AWM). In essence AWM is a way of responding to uncertainty by designing policy measures which are provisional and incremental, subject to subsequent modification in response to environmental change and other variables. Included are illustrative case studies from seven river basins from across Europe, West Asia and Africa: the Elbe, Rhine, Guadiana, Tisza, Orange, Nile and Amudarya. These exemplify the key challenges of adaptive water management, especially when rivers cross national boundaries, creating additional problems of governance.

Author Biography

Jaroslav Mysiak is Senior Researcher at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, and a lecturer at the Department of Economics, University Ca'Fascari in Venice, Italy. John Bromley is a hydrogeologist and a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Water Research, UK. Claudia Pahl-Wostl is Professor of Management of Resource Flows at the Institute for Environmental Systems Research in Osnabruck, Germany.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	p. ix
Contributor Affiliations	p. xiii
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction-Making a Strong Case for AWM	p. 1
Challenges of river basin management	p. 1
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)	p. 4
Adaptive Water Management in terms of development and application within IWRM	p. 7
Tools for adaptive management	p. 9
AWM concept in terms of training and capacity building	p. 11
Working Towards AWM	p. 17
Key outcomes and benefits of AWM	p. 17
Summary of outcomes from NeWater case river basins (outputs and benefits)	p. 22
Experiences and identification of lessons learned from piloting AWM	p. 32
Tools and Instruments for Adaptive Management	p. 33
Management of participatory processes	p. 33
Participatory modelling	p. 39
Uncertainty and policy making	p. 43
Indicators and monitoring to support AWM	p. 47
An introduction to analysing dynamic vulnerability	p. 53
Integrated assessment tools and decision support systems	p. 57
Climate change impacts on water resources and adaptation options	p. 62
Management and Transition Framework	p. 67
Internet portals and services for knowledge transfer	p. 70
Capacity Building and Knowledge Transfer	p. 81
Introduction	p. 81
Aims of the training courses	p. 81
Target audience for training	p. 82
Obstacles encountered	p. 82
The 'broker concept'	p. 82
Train-the-trainer workshops	p. 83
Train-the-practitioner workshops	p. 83
AWM in academic education	p. 84
Lessons learned in academic education	p. 85
Involvement of organizations outside the project consortium	p. 86
Case Study: Elbe	p. 89
Background	p. 89
Selected themes	p. 90
Research and tools applied in the Elbe case study	p. 93
Outlook and policy summary	p. 98
Case Study: Guadiana	p. 103
Background	p. 103
Selected themes	p. 104
Groundwater modelling and management scenarios	p. 109
WEAP model	p. 109
The vulnerability analysis (CART analysis)	p. 110
Bayesian Belief Networks	p. 110
Water Footprint	p. 111
The Future	p. 112
Case Study: Rhine	p. 117
Introduction	p. 117
The Lower Rhine	p. 118
Kromme Rijn	p. 120
Wupper	p. 123
Comparison between the Wupper and Kromme Rijn regimes	p. 125
Conclusions	p. 126
Case Study: Tisza	p. 129
Background	p. 129
Major problems	p. 130
Lessons learnt and the future	p. 139
How can AWRM help and what tools are still needed	p. 140
Case Study: Amudarya	p. 143
Background	p. 143
Selected themes addressed in the Amudarya Case Study	p. 144
Tools developed and applied in the Amudarya case study	p. 151
The future	p. 154
Case Study: Nile	p. 157
Background	p. 157
Selected themes in the NeWater project	p. 160
Tools applied in NeWater	p. 160
Future of the Nile Basin	p. 167
Case Study: Orange	p. 169
Background	p. 169
Addressing issues of concern	p. 170
The institutional context in the Orange basin	p. 171
Tools and approaches applied in the Orange-Senqu case study	p. 171
Theme 1: A focus on ecosystem goods and services	p. 172
Theme 2: Investigating alternative possible futures through scenarios	p. 176
Conclusions	p. 180
Summary and Outlook	p. 183
What is adaptive management and why it matters	p. 183
How AWM can contribute to implementation of water policies	p. 185
Lessons learned and practical suggestions	p. 187
Index	p. 193
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