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In the sixteenth century, the eminent Renaissance scholar Leonardo Da Vinci said that water is the driver of nature. During his lifetime, some may have considered this to be an overstatement, but some half a millennium later, Leonardo’s understanding of the role, relevance and importance of water to society and nature can be considered to have been prophetic. Water is increasingly considered to be...
Population growth has largely been considered as the ultimate driver for the sustainability challenges of our planet’s development. Whereas this assumption is not totally wrong, the demographic pressure on this planet is a far more complex issue than mere growth and has many important facets. It is, for instance, very interesting to look at populations that do not grow but instead stay constant or...
The water cycle is the bloodstream of both biosphere and human society. Every human body contains some 70% water, which has to be partly renewed every day. The body does not function when the water content diminishes too much. Water – although chemically simple – is a highly complex substance with many different functions: health, income generation, energy production, biomass production, habitat and...
We live in a complex world full of uncertainty. This is particularly true of hydrological systems and the myriad other factors affecting water management. The nonlinear nature of the hydrologic cycle is well documented (Gleick, 1987; Lewin, 1992; Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 2006; Ruhl, 1997). As the debate on climate change and climate change models illustrates, it can be notoriously difficult...
Water resource use has exploded in the past century and a half, and there is no end in sight in this trend. The Malthusian race between population increase and food production has heavily stressed water resources. Urbanisation has been impacting critically on water consumption, spreading rapidly to the developing world in recent decades. Industrial consumption of water resources, including indirect...
A number of unsustainable trends concerning land, water and air can be observed locally, regionally and globally (European Environment Agency, 2005). Scientific method in a traditional sense of positivism has a role in making such observations and measurements visible. Natural science contributes to our understanding of climate change issues, water shortages of specific qualities or land degradation...
The chapter sets out by describing the highly dynamic and complex environment in which organisations in the water sector have to operate today. Section 2 shows the dynamic and consequent change as a persistent paradigm, which is in need of leadership. Leadership sets the necessary framework to adapt to these changes at an organisational level and yet remain faithful to one’s values. Steering change...
The problem of water stress and water quality is one of the main environmental issues in Europe, together with climate change, air quality, biodiversity and soil quality. With respect to water quantity, withdrawal of water resources in Europe is above 20% of renewable freshwater resources. The major pressures on water quantities occur during summer in southern countries because of irrigation demand...
There is no doubt about it: the climate is changing and the effects are now tangible and predictable. Scientific research has shown that even if we make significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), climate change cannot be prevented. Which is why we have to adapt to make the effects of the changing climate acceptable: the Netherlands must be made climate-proof.
The continuing HIV/AIDS pandemic across sub-Saharan Africa has had an enormous impact on societies, and the number of people dying from AIDS-related diseases has reached truly alarming levels in several countries. The series of adverse impacts appears likely to continue – especially in southern Africa – where HIV prevalence rates have reached heights seen nowhere else in the world, and little evidence...
The major advances of irrigation in Spain, and within the autonomous community of Aragon, basically took place during the twentieth century, the second half in particular. Nevertheless, major developments in Aragon that were included in plans that date from the beginning of the twentieth century – basically the Bardenas System (www.cgbardenas.com) and the Upper Aragon Irrigation Systems (www.cg-riegosaltoaragon...
Singapore is a small island nation with a total land area of about 700 km2, or 65% the size of the city of Zaragoza. However, the population in Singapore is 4.6 million, about 6.5 times that of Zaragoza. The result is a densely populated city that exerts great pressure on competing land uses such as housing, commerce, industry, transport, recreation, schools and universities and, on top of these,...
For many years desalination was regarded as a process the application of which was, on the whole, restricted to the Middle East and a few island communities around the world where rainfall or collection areas to harvest rainfall were insufficient to sustain the local population’s needs. The first generation of desalination equipment was generally a thermal-based, evaporative process, and water produced...
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