"This Discussion Paper examines regional or local water planning approaches from three western states -- California's Integrated Regional Water Management, Texas' Regional Water Planning Program, and Washington's Watershed Planning process. The purpose of this paper is to highlight several key planning elements that could inform Oregon's approach to place-based, integrated water resources planning. Several questions are posed throughout the document, and serve as a starting point for discussion with stakeholders and the public. The state's objective is to develop guidelines that can facilitate place-based planning efforts within Oregon communities, with the ultimate goal of meeting current and future water needs -- instream and out-of-stream, including water quantity, water quality, and ecosystem needs"--Page 2.

Integrated Water Resource Planning provides practical, evidence-based guidance on water resource planning. In a time of heightened awareness of ecosystem needs, climate change, and increasing and conflicting demands on resources, water professionals and decision-makers around the world are on a steep learning curve. This book presents an international examination of water reform experiences, and provides lessons in how to manage environmental uncertainties, long term management, and increase in demand. It breaks the process down into a series of common steps, applies program logic and evaluation theory, and discusses best practices in assessment, decision making and community engagement. Importantly it recognises the large variation in available knowledge and capacity, risk and scale, and discusses a range of approaches that can be used for different circumstances. The book will fill in the gaps for professionals in interdisciplinary teams including sociologists, hydrologists, engineers, ecologists, and community consultation specialists, by providing a basic grounding in areas outside their usual expertise, and will provide ammunition to community stakeholders in their quest to ensure that water planning outcomes are justified and justifiable. Case studies provide an understanding of the context, practical tools and implementation techniques for achieving sustainable outcomes, and the multi-disciplinary approach and insights offered in this book will be transposable and instructive for water professionals worldwide.

This book reviews the concept, contemporary research efforts and the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The IWRM concept was established as an international guiding water management paradigm in the early 1990ies and has become a vital approach to solving the problems associated with the topic of water. The book summarizes fourteen comprehensive IWRM research projects with worldwide coverage and analyses their motivations, settings, approaches and implementation of results. Aiming to be an up-to-date interdisciplinary scientific reference, this book provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis of contemporary IWRM research, examples of science based implementations and a synthesis of the lessons learnt. It concludes with some major future challenges, the solving of which will further strengthen the IWRM concept.

This open access textbook provides a concise introduction to economic approaches and mathematical methods for the study of water allocation and distribution problems. Written in an accessible and straightforward style, it discusses and analyzes central issues in integrated water resource management, water tariffs, water markets, and transboundary water management. By illustrating the interplay between the hydrological cycle and the rules and institutions that govern today’s water allocation policies, the authors develop a modern perspective on water management. Moreover, the book presents an in-depth assessment of the political and ethical dimensions of water management and its institutional embeddedness, by discussing distribution issues and issues of the enforceability of human rights in managing water resources. Given its scope, the book will appeal to advanced undergraduate and graduate students of economics and engineering, as well as practitioners in the water sector, seeking a deeper understanding of economic approaches to the study of water management.

IRRIGATION FUNDAMENTALS is a comprehensive text on the basic principles and practices of applied agricultural irrigation. Written over a period of more than 10 years, it is based on the authors'' extensive experience in farming, consulting, research, teaching, and other related agricultural activities. The book is for use by teachers of introductory courses in irrigation, farmers who have some basic technical knowledge, and for administrators who need a general understanding of irrigation as an aid for policy decisions in water resource development and planning. Various factors that influence crop yield and production including climate, fertility, water, drainage, and agronomic practices are addressed. The various irrigation methods such as border, basin, contour, furrow, sub, sprinkle, and drip or trickle are described; and conditions are given for selection of the appropriate method to use. Recent developments and new technology are included herein when they have obvious practical applications, but for the most part the material presented in this book is based on well established principles and practices. Much of the content is very practical and much is essentially nontechnical. Nevertheless, some of the material covered in this book goes beyond the basic concepts in an attempt to better describe the relationships and techniques employed by irrigation scientists and irrigation engineers.From the Preface: The future of the world depends very much on how we manage natural resources. Since the year 1900 there has been a ninefold increase in global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, and the world population has increased about 3.7 times in this century. Vast areas of forests have been destroyed, and irrigated lands now produce 40% of the food supply. Due to depletion of groundwater reserves and an increase in population, irrigated area per capita is declining. Consequently, the irrigation of additional alluvial lands is a strategic necessity for all of humankind. Much of the alluvial lands cannot be made productive without prior development of water resources through flood control, drainage, and irrigation. The production of electricity through hydropower and the production of alcohol fuel from irrigated crops, as has been practiced for many years in Brazil, can slow the increase in carbon emissions. Such diverse developments are typically not separable; rather, they must be considered as integral parts of a comprehensive development plan. The conservation of natural resources and increasing productivity of irrigated lands are also strategic necessities. Much of the current technology is highly transferable and crop yields can be significantly increased on lands already under irrigation.The authors have worked in many countries in connection with resource inventories, teaching, and the planning, development and use of irrigation as a tool for increasing production and providing employment. They have written extensively and have been honored for their achievements. They have considerable experience with everything from primitive low-technology irrigation developments to highly developed irrigation in the USA and in dozens of countries around the world. Both of the authors have dedicated their careers to teaching, research, and consulting in agricultural irrigation and water resources development and planning. It is their hope and expectation that this book will provide incentives for investigating and documenting land and water resources, improving development, increasing crop yields, conserving resources, and improving the environment. From the Table of Contents:Chapt. 1 - INTRODUCTION: Irrigation Fundamentals: - - A Definition of Irrigation - - Statistical Perspectives of Agricultural IrrigationChapt. 2 - FACTORS INFLUENCING CROP PRODUCTION: - - Introduction - - Temperature, Radiation, and Evaporative Potential - - Climate Change - - Soil Fertility and Fertilizers - - Water Availability and Distribution - - Soil Aeration and Drainage - - Plant Density, Spacing and Leaf Area Index - - Crop VarietyChapt. 3 - AGRICULTURAL SOILS: - - Introduction - - Soil Texture and Structure - - Soil Classification and Evaluation - - Bureau of Reclamation Land Classification - - Soil Age and Topography - - Soil Chemistry - - Infiltration Rates - - Soil-Water Relationships - - Equations for Soil Water Content - - Soil Water Potential - - Measuring Soil Water ContentChapt. 4 - EVALUATING IRRIGATION RESOURCES: - - Introduction - - Climate - - Hydrology - - Human and Other Factors - - Integrated DevelopmentChapt. 5 - IRRIGATION METHODS: - - Introduction - - Graded Border Irrigation - - Basin Irrigation - - Contour Levees - - Furrow Irrigation - - Sub-Irrigation - - Sprinkle Irrigation - - Drip or Trickle Irrigation - - Selecting an Irrigation Method - - Land Grading and Leveling - - Laser-Leveling Equipment and Practices - - Computing Diagonal Slopes - - Irrigation System EvaluationChapt. 6 - CROP WATER REQUIREMENTS: - - Introduction - - Direct Methods - - Indirect Methods - - Potential Evaporation - - Reference Evapotranspiration - - Extraterrestrial Solar Radiation - - Irrigation Requirements - - Crop CoefficientsChapt. 7 - IRRIGATION SCHEDULING: - - Introduction - - Allowable Water Depletion - - Monitoring Soil Water - - Scheduling Irrigations - - Rice Irrigation

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has become a global paradigm for the governance of surface, coastal and groundwaters. This Special Issue contains twelve articles related to the transfer of IWRM policy principles. The articles explore three dimensions of transfer—causes, processes, outcomes—and offer a theoretically inspiring, methodologically rich and geographically diverse engagement with IWRM policy transfer around the globe. As such, they can also productively inform a future research agenda on the ‘dimensional’ aspects of IWRM governance. Regarding the causes, the contributions apply, criticise, extend or revise existing approaches to policy transfer in a water governance context, asking why countries adopt IWRM principles and what mechanisms are in place to understand the adoption of these principles in regional or national contexts. When it comes to processes, articles in this Special Issue unpack the process of policy transfer and implementation and explore how IWRM principles travel across borders, levels and scales. Finally, this set of papers looks into the outcomes of IWRM policy transfer and asks what impact IWRM principles, once implemented, gave on domestic water governance, water quality and water supply, and how effective IWRM is at addressing critical water issues in specific countries.