Land Drainage – Principles, Methods and Applications presents the latest information, concepts and technology for ensuring sustainable agricultural production and environmental management by adopting land drainage measures. It focuses on a subject, central to the sustainability of irrigated agriculture. The authors’ considerable field work experience and strong grip on the subject are pivotal in conceptualizing this book. This book provides an explicit description of the subject for students as well as the practicing engineers in this area. A logical sequence is followed in the presentation of chapters, beginning with the occurrence of drainage problems, their causes, remedies, design and execution of drainage systems and the benefits of drainage. The book can claim to be the only comprehensive title on the subject in India. SALIENT FEATURES 1. Follows an application-centric approach based on mathematical and statistical concepts 2. Provides a global scenario of drainage by studying different drainage models 3. Discusses drainage in the Indian context 4. Text is supported by statistical inputs and well illustrated examples 5. Includes self-assessment questions with answers and a number of solved and unsolved problems 6. Includes case studies of Drainage and Salt Management

Water harvesting is gaining more and more recognition as the sustainable and resilient alternative to other water supply options. It is economically viable, socially compatible and environmentally friendly. Water harvesting has proven to be a robust solution to overcome or reduce water shortages all over the world. To apply this in a sustainable and effective way, it is important to understand exactly where it can be applied to make full use of its potential. The Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation: Case Studies and Application Examples is the most comprehensive, up-to-date and applied casebook on water harvesting and conservation yet published. The editors bring together the many perspectives into a synthesis that is both academically-based and practical in its potential applications. The Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation: Case Studies and Application Examples will be an important tool for education, research and technical works in the soil, water and watershed management area, and will be highly useful for drought strategy planning, flood management and adaptation to climate change in all urban, agricultural, forest, rangeland areas.

Few Americans identify slavery with the cultivation of rice, yet rice was a major plantation crop during the first three centuries of settlement in the Americas. Rice accompanied African slaves across the Middle Passage throughout the New World to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. By the middle of the eighteenth century, rice plantations in South Carolina and the black slaves who worked them had created one of the most profitable economies in the world. Black Rice tells the story of the true provenance of rice in the Americas. It establishes, through agricultural and historical evidence, the vital significance of rice in West African society for a millennium before Europeans arrived and the slave trade began. The standard belief that Europeans introduced rice to West Africa and then brought the knowledge of its cultivation to the Americas is a fundamental fallacy, one which succeeds in effacing the origins of the crop and the role of Africans and African-American slaves in transferring the seed, the cultivation skills, and the cultural practices necessary for establishing it in the New World. In this vivid interpretation of rice and slaves in the Atlantic world, Judith Carney reveals how racism has shaped our historical memory and neglected this critical African contribution to the making of the Americas.