Rivers and Sustainable Development compares river policies across the world.

Rivers are a vital component of ecology-the earth's hydrological cycle depends on them. However, across the world, rivers are under stress and even in crisis. With rising populations, the demand for river water is increasing. Many rivers fail to reach the sea because of excessive withdrawal of water, and many other rivers are heading toward the same fate. Conflicts over river water are increasing, and climate change is making matters worse. River policies pursued so far are often aggravating these challenges rather than solving them. Yet, sustainable development requires healthy rivers. Urgent change in the approach and policies toward rivers is therefore required. In this book, Nazrul Islam points to the ways in which river policies need to change to ensure sustainable development. He offers a new conceptual framework, using such concepts as the Commercial and Cordon approaches to rivers and their opposite, the Ecological and Open approaches. He shows that while the former generally work against sustainability, the latter are conducive to sustainable development. The book illustrates this reality by drawing upon worldwide experience regarding rivers. Going forward, river policies therefore should be based on Ecological and Open approaches. Islam argues further that the use of the new conceptual framework offered in this book can help to connect the river related discussion of experts with that of activists. It can thus help to move the discussion of river policies from the narrow confines of experts to the wider arena of the public, who should have a greater role in formulation of river policies in order to safeguard public interests and ensure sustainability. The book serves as a valuable guide for those interested in learning about river policy changes necessary to promote sustainable development.

This book presents recent innovative trends in land, water and energy management in Vietnam. Presenting the main projects and outcomes of a close collaboration between Italian and Vietnamese researchers in the last three years, the book is divided into three main sections: environment, climate change and land management in Vietnam; energy for Vietnam; and cities and utilities in Vietnam. The first section focuses on water systems, including rivers and seacoasts, and on new growing methods for more sustainable agriculture. The second section addresses energy and wastewater. The country’s rapid growth is a major challenge in terms of reinforcing the electrical infrastructures, and as such this section offers an overview of the government’s planned measures and their impact on the Vietnamese power system. The third section highlights cities and utilities in the context of increasing urbanization, exploring the urban morphology of the Vietnamese metropolis, particularly Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

In this contribution to the academic and policy debates surrounding the management and governance of shared natural resources, the focus is placed on River Basin Organizations as the key institutions for managing internationally shared water resources. The book includes advide to policy makers based on worldwide analysis, and three detailed case studies from three continents: the Senegal (West Africa), Mekong (South-east Asia) and Danube (Europe) rivers.

Rivers and their watersheds constitute some of the most dynamic and complex landscapes. Rivers have sustained human communities, and human societies have utilized and altered river flows in a number of ways for millennia. However, the level of human impact on rivers, and on watershed environments, has become acute during the last hundred years or so. This book brings together empirical research and theoretical perspectives on the changing conditions of a range of river basin environments in the contemporary world, including the history and culture of local societies living in these river basins. It provides theoretical insights on the patterns and nature of the interaction between rivers and their use by human communities. The chapters are written from a variety of positions, including environmental science, hydrology, human ecology, urban studies, water management, historical geography, cultural anthropology and tourism studies. The case studies span different geographical regions, providing valuable insight on the multifaceted interactions between rivers and our societies, and on the changing riverscapes in different parts of the world. Specific detailed examples are included from Australia, Brazil, France, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, UK and USA. Chapter 11 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

A comprehensive resource to sustainability and its application to the environmental, industrial, agricultural and food security sectors Sustainability fills a gap in the literature in order to provide an important guide to the fundamental knowledge and practical applications of sustainability in a wide variety of areas. The authors – noted experts who represent a number of sustainability fields – bring together in one comprehensive volume the broad range of topics including basic concepts, impact assessment, environmental and the socio-economic aspects of sustainability. In addition, the book covers applications of sustainability in environmental, industrial, agricultural and food security, as well as carbon cycle and infrastructural aspects. Sustainability addresses the challenges the global community is facing due to population growth, depletion of non-renewable resources of energy, environmental degradation, poverty, excessive generation of wastes and more. Throughout the book the authors discuss the economics, ecological, social, technological and systems perspectives of sustainability. This important resource: Explores the fundamentals as well as the key concepts of sustainability; Covers basic concepts, impact assessment, environmental and socio-economic aspects, applications of sustainability in environmental, industrial, agricultural and food security, carbon cycle and infrastructural aspects; Argues the essentiality of sustainability in ensuring the propitious future of earth systems; and Authored by experts from a range of various fields related to sustainability. Written for researchers and scientists, students and academics, Sustainability: Fundamentals and Applications is a comprehensive book that covers the basic knowledge of the topic combined with practical applications.

In the 2000s, Laos was treated as a model country for the efficacy of privatized, "sustainable" hydropower projects as viable options for World Bank-led development. By viewing hydropower as a process that creates ecologically uncertain environments, Jerome Whitington reveals how new forms of managerial care have emerged in the context of a privatized dam project successfully targeted by transnational activists. Based on ethnographic work inside the hydropower company, as well as with Laotians affected by the dam, he investigates how managers, technicians and consultants grapple with unfamiliar environmental obligations through new infrastructural configurations, locally-inscribed ethical practices, and forms of flexible experimentation informed by American management theory. Far from the authoritative expertise that characterized classical modernist hydropower, sustainable development in Laos has been characterized by a shift from the risk politics of the 1990s to an ontological politics in which the institutional conditions of infrastructure investment are pervasively undermined by sophisticated ‘hactivism.’ Whitington demonstrates how late industrial environments are infused with uncertainty inherent in the anthropogenic ecologies themselves. Whereas ‘anthropogenic’ usually describes human-induced environmental change, it can also show how new capacities for being human are generated when people live in ecologies shot through with uncertainty. Implementing what Foucault called a "historical ontology of ourselves," Anthropogenic Rivers formulates a new materialist critique of the dirty ecologies of late industrialism by pinpointing the opportunistic, ambitious and speculative ontology of capitalist natures.

The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) is hosted and led by UNESCO. WWAP brings together the work of 31 UN-Water Members as well as 37 Partners to publish the United Nations World Water Development Report (WWDR) series. Under the theme Water for Sustainable Development, the WWDR 2015 has been prepared as a contribution from UN-Water to the discussions surrounding the post-2015 framework for global sustainable development. Highlighting water's unique and often complex role in achieving various sustainable development objectives, the WWDR 2015 is addressed to policy- and decision-makers inside and outside the water community, as well as to anyone with an interest in freshwater and its many life-giving benefits. The report sets an aspirational yet achievable vision for the future of water towards 2050 by describing how water supports healthy and prosperous human communities, maintains well functioning ecosystems and ecological services, and provides a cornerstone for short and long-term economic development. It provides an overview of the challenges, issues and trends in terms of water resources, their use and water-related services like water supply and sanitation. The report also offers, in a rigorous yet accessible manner, guidance about how to address these challenges and to seize the opportunities that sound water management provides in order to achieve and maintain economic, social and environmental sustainability.

On the occasion of awarding the Developing Countries Prize 2004.

This book describes the journey of Singapore ́s development and the fundamental role that water has had in shaping it. What makes this case so unique is that the quest for self-sufficiency in terms of water availability in a fast-changing urban context has been crucial to the way development policies and agendas have been planned throughout the years.