Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Water Problems (water + problem)
Selected AbstractsWICKED WATER PROBLEMS: SOCIOLOGY AND LOCAL WATER ORGANIZATIONS IN ADDRESSING WATER RESOURCES POLICY,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 3 2000David M. Freeman ABSTRACT: Water policy problems are wicked, not in an ethically deplorable sense, but in the sense that they present us with especially difficult challenges of becoming more effective in our interdisciplinary collaboration, of integrating two very different types of knowledge, of working across several socio-political units of analysis simultaneously, and of better organizing water as a common property resource. Sociology, as a discipline, does not have a particularly rich history of successful interdisciplinary collaboration on water resources research and teaching, but it potentially has a most useful contribution to make by focusing on the analysis of local common property resource organizations that operate in the interface between individual resource users and State-Federal entities. These organizations (e.g., water user associations, mutual companies, irrigation districts, acequias, conservancy districts) have been the orphans of water policy discourse but their operations are critical to undertaking more effective 21st century social analysis, research work, and action programs. Sociologists who work to better comprehend the operations of, and constraints upon, these organizations build a sociology that can better collaborate with other water-related disciplines in addressing the challenges posed by the wickedness of our water problems. [source] Water problems and hydrological research in the Yellow River and the Huai and Hai River basins of ChinaHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 12 2004Changming Liu Abstract This paper deals with hydrological research in regard to the water resources crisis in the vulnerable areas found in the northern part of China. This area includes three main river basins, namely the basins of the Yellow (Huang) River, the Hai River and the Huai River. Several water problems are becoming very severe. Among them, two are the most critical: the Yellow River has been drained dry in the main course of its lower reaches and along its major tributaries, and the groundwater table has rapidly declined in the floodplains of the three rivers' downstream areas. To counter the problems, particularly the critical issues mentioned above, hydrological research, which serves as the basis of water development and management, has been carried out in the last two decades. This paper addresses three basic scientific problems in North China, namely: (a) water consumption and the capacity for saving water; (b) the changes in hydrological processes and water resources caused by natural change and human activities; and (c) the ability to supply water resources and water safety in terms of both quantity and quality within a changing environment. However, opportunities and challenges for ameliorating the problems exist, and new ideas and methodology to solve the problems have been proposed, such as the interface process study on the interactions in the soil,root interface, the plant,atmosphere interface, the soil,atmosphere interface, and the interface of soil water and groundwater. In order to manage water resources in a sustainable manner, the study of water resources' renewal ability as affected by natural change and human activity is addressed from the viewpoint of both water quantity and quality, and their integration. To reduce the vulnerability of water resources in regional water management, a paradigm of sustainable water resources utilization is also proposed, using water,heat balance, water,salt balance, water,sediment balance, and water supply,demand balance. This approach may help reveal the basic problems and point to possible approaches to solving the water problems in North China in the 21st century. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Application of Superposition with Nonlinear Head-Dependent FluxesGROUND WATER, Issue 2 2008Timothy Durbin While superposition is commonly used to address linear ground water problems, it can also be used to address certain nonlinear problems. In particular, it can be used to address problems with nonlinear head-dependent fluxes, where the problem can be separated conveniently into steady-state and transient-state components. Superposition can be used to simulate the transient-state head changes independently from the steady-state heads. The problems addressable by superposition include phreatophyte discharges, stream-aquifer interactions, spring discharges, and drain discharges. Each of these represents a nonlinear head-dependent flux, where the flux depends on the elevation of the land surface or some other feature. Superposition is applied by referencing elevations to the local steady-state water table and by imposing the negative of the steady-state flux on the transient-state problem. [source] Water problems and hydrological research in the Yellow River and the Huai and Hai River basins of ChinaHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 12 2004Changming Liu Abstract This paper deals with hydrological research in regard to the water resources crisis in the vulnerable areas found in the northern part of China. This area includes three main river basins, namely the basins of the Yellow (Huang) River, the Hai River and the Huai River. Several water problems are becoming very severe. Among them, two are the most critical: the Yellow River has been drained dry in the main course of its lower reaches and along its major tributaries, and the groundwater table has rapidly declined in the floodplains of the three rivers' downstream areas. To counter the problems, particularly the critical issues mentioned above, hydrological research, which serves as the basis of water development and management, has been carried out in the last two decades. This paper addresses three basic scientific problems in North China, namely: (a) water consumption and the capacity for saving water; (b) the changes in hydrological processes and water resources caused by natural change and human activities; and (c) the ability to supply water resources and water safety in terms of both quantity and quality within a changing environment. However, opportunities and challenges for ameliorating the problems exist, and new ideas and methodology to solve the problems have been proposed, such as the interface process study on the interactions in the soil,root interface, the plant,atmosphere interface, the soil,atmosphere interface, and the interface of soil water and groundwater. In order to manage water resources in a sustainable manner, the study of water resources' renewal ability as affected by natural change and human activity is addressed from the viewpoint of both water quantity and quality, and their integration. To reduce the vulnerability of water resources in regional water management, a paradigm of sustainable water resources utilization is also proposed, using water,heat balance, water,salt balance, water,sediment balance, and water supply,demand balance. This approach may help reveal the basic problems and point to possible approaches to solving the water problems in North China in the 21st century. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Third World Water Forum: to translate visions into concrete actions and commitmentsHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 11 2002Hideaki Oda Abstract Water is vital for the life and health of people and ecosystems and a basic requirement for the development of countries, but many people lack access to adequate and safe water to meet their most basic needs. Water resources, and the related ecosystems, are now under threat from pollution, unsustainable use, climate change, and many other forces. The World Water Forum series has been likened to a series of stepping stones towards the solution of the world's pressing water problems. Each step constitutes a new phase. The third World Water Forum takes up the World Water Vision created at the second World Water Forum in The Hague in 2000, and sets out to see that vision realized in concrete actions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Solution of the 2-D shallow water equations with source terms in surface elevation splitting formINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Issue 5 2007Dong-Jun Ma Abstract A vertex-centred finite-volume/finite-element method (FV/FEM) is developed for solving 2-D shallow water equations (SWEs) with source terms written in a surface elevation splitting form, which balances the flux gradients and source terms. The method is implemented on unstructured grids and the numerical scheme is based on a second-order MUSCL-like upwind Godunov FV discretization for inviscid fluxes and a classical Galerkin FE discretization for the viscous gradients and source terms. The main advantages are: (1) the discretization of SWE written in surface elevation splitting form satisfies the exact conservation property (,,-Property) naturally; (2) the simple centred-type discretization can be used for the source terms; (3) the method is suitable for both steady and unsteady shallow water problems; and (4) complex topography can be handled based on unstructured grids. The accuracy of the method was verified for both steady and unsteady problems, including discontinuous cases. The results indicate that the new method is accurate, simple, and robust. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] WICKED WATER PROBLEMS: SOCIOLOGY AND LOCAL WATER ORGANIZATIONS IN ADDRESSING WATER RESOURCES POLICY,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 3 2000David M. Freeman ABSTRACT: Water policy problems are wicked, not in an ethically deplorable sense, but in the sense that they present us with especially difficult challenges of becoming more effective in our interdisciplinary collaboration, of integrating two very different types of knowledge, of working across several socio-political units of analysis simultaneously, and of better organizing water as a common property resource. Sociology, as a discipline, does not have a particularly rich history of successful interdisciplinary collaboration on water resources research and teaching, but it potentially has a most useful contribution to make by focusing on the analysis of local common property resource organizations that operate in the interface between individual resource users and State-Federal entities. These organizations (e.g., water user associations, mutual companies, irrigation districts, acequias, conservancy districts) have been the orphans of water policy discourse but their operations are critical to undertaking more effective 21st century social analysis, research work, and action programs. Sociologists who work to better comprehend the operations of, and constraints upon, these organizations build a sociology that can better collaborate with other water-related disciplines in addressing the challenges posed by the wickedness of our water problems. [source] Selling the Public on Sustainable Watershed ConservationBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2004Jeff Pugh Abstract:, The city of Quito, Ecuador, began working in 2000 to protect the ecologically fragile watershed area for its drinking water. In order to protect the Papallacta watershed, the independent Fund for the Conservation of Watersheds (FONAG) was launched to finance and manage economically sound sustainability projects in the area. FONAG is funded in part through start up grants from several organisations and a 1 per cent fee on all Quito water bills, but it has been unable to build an endowment sizeable enough to begin implementing conservation projects. We measure perceptions of the fund among Quito's university,based residents in two settings and evaluate the quality of the fund's proposed communication campaign based on existing communication theory. Further, we propose an adapted environmental education model based on a synthesis of existing theory and the empirical findings from our examination of the FONAG example. The Papallacta case study illuminates the potential strengths and weaknesses of the cultural ecology and political will of this type of collaborative sustainability project for addressing water problems in a developing country in a mountainous setting, centred around the themes of water conservation and sustainable development. [source] Hydrology and water resources in monsoon Asia: a consideration of the necessity of establishing a standing research community of hydrology and water resources in the Asia Pacific regionHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 14 2003Katumi Musiake Abstract Hydrological and water resources issues appear very differently in different regions, and are strongly affected by geographical conditions. Hydrological knowledge and methodologies obtained in a specific region cannot necessarily be adapted to other regions. The purpose of this paper is to clarify one way to address adequately the regional characteristics of hydrology and water resources in monsoon Asia, especially the ,too much water' problems in the region. For this purpose, geomorphological factors, climatic factors and human intervention in the natural environment are taken into consideration as the three major factors governing the regional characteristics of the hydrology,water resources system. To identify geomorphological features macroscopically between the Asia Pacific region and other continental regions, the concepts ,tectonic zone' and ,stable region', which are two major subdivisions of continental masses in the world, are introduced. Also, a new climatic subdivision termed ,warm-humid' is proposed to express the abundant precipitation due to the Asian monsoon. Then, hydrological characteristics common or similar in ,warm-humid tectonic zones' in the Asia Pacific region, contrasted with those in stable regions, are enumerated together with the human intervention corresponding to these characteristics, and research targets peculiar to warm-humid tectonic zones are discussed. Finally, the establishment of a standing research community called ,Asia Pacific Association of Hydrology and Water Resources' is proposed to promote the exchange of operational knowledge and experience in water resources management, cooperative research activities, and professional education in the Asia Pacific region. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||