On the occasion of the International Year of Mountains-2002, FAO and its partners undertook a large-scale assessment and global review of the current status and future trends of integrated and participatory watershed management. The overall objectives were to promote the exchange and dissemination of experiences in implementing watershed management projects in the decade from 1990 to 2000 and to identify the vision for a new generation of watershed management programmes and projects. This resource book represents a summary and critical analysis of the rich discussions and vast materials that emerged during the review, as well as the review's findings and recommendations. It presents the state of the art in watershed management, promotes further reflection and creative thinking and proposes new ideas and approaches for future watershed management programmes and projects. This publication has been written primarily for field-level watershed management practitioners and local decision-makers involved in watershed management at the district or municipality level. It will also be a useful source of information for other readers such as senior officers and consultants specialized in other areas, evaluators, policy-makers and students of watershed management

The purpose of this Sourcebook is to provide advice on how to incorporate disaster risk reduction and resilience building into the watershed management process. As an increasingly heavier toll is exerted on agriculture and food systems by drought, floods, wildfires, and other extreme events, adopting risk reduction and management practices must become an integral part of watershed management. While the steps involved to incorporate resilience building are similar to those routinely carried out in integrated watershed management, this Sourcebook stresses the importance of understanding disaster and climate risks, adopting a landscape approach and targeting vulnerable groups (e.g. women, youth, indigenous people, others) at all stages of planning and implementing watershed management.

Global change possesses serious challenges for water managers and scientists. In mountain areas, where water supplies for half of the world population originate, climate and hydrologic models are still subject to considerable uncertainty. And yet, critical decisions have to be taken to ensure adequate and safe water supplies to billions of people, millions of farmers and industries, without further deteriorating rivers and water bodies. While global warming is known to cause glaciers’ retreat and reduced snow packs around the world, it is not clear that mountain discharge will be lower. What is widely recognised is that water management must be adapted to accommodate significant regime changes. However, this inevitably involves managing transboundary rivers, adding further complexity to putting principles in practice. This book takes global warming and the importance of mountain areas in world water resources as the starting point. First, it provides detailed reviews of the processes going on in several rivers systems and world regions in Europe (Rhône and Ebro), North America (Canadian Rockies, Western US and Mexico), the Middle East (Jordan), Africa (Tunisia, Kenya and South Africa). These contexts provide case studies and examples that show the difficulties and potential for adaptation to global change. Land-use, economics, numerous modeling approaches are some of the cross-cutting issues covered in the chapters. The volume also includes the views of water practitioners, with two chapters authored by members of the US-Canada International Joint Commission, an industrialist from Western Canada and an environmental leader in Spain. By combining a rich set of contexts and approaches, the volume succeeds in offering a view of the global challenges faced by water agencies, international donors and researchers around the world. A case is made in some chapters to seek adaptive strategies rather than trying to reduce or control resources variability. This requires factoring in land-use, social and economic aspects, especially in developing countries. Another conclusion is that complex problems can and must be posed and negotiated with the help of models, mapping techniques and science-based facts. However complex these may be, there are ways to translate them to easily interpretable and visualisations of alternative scenarios and courses of action. This book provides numerous examples of the potential of such approaches to draft environmental programmes solve transboundary disputes and reduce the economic consequences of droughts and climate instability.

This work provides insights into the physical and human geography of Sardinia, the second largest Mediterranean island, with its complex, varied, changing and often hidden features. The title, “Surrounded by Water”, recalls the identity of a land whose coastlines and surrounding seas have symbolically represented social, economic, political, cultural bridges or walls, meeting or colliding places, over its long and difficult history. Landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes are presented and analysed, together with other aspects, through a descriptive focus and original contributions provided by some local experts, in order to offer scholars and students across the globe a complex and multi-dimensional view of the reality of Sardinia through the lens of its geography. Each chapter of the book offers an in-depth and concise analysis of a specific topic, through the description of its characteristics and its current variations within the territory of the island. These descriptive aspects will be complemented with insights related to the research experiences and findings provided by the authors. This book will contribute to stirring new and modern interest about Sardinia, about further regional geographic studies, and about academic, scientific and cultural exchanges, among peoples and countries with both similar and different histories, identities, issues and hopes.