"Wessex Institute of Technology's Sustainable Irrigation 2012 Conference held at University of South Australia in Adelaide"--Preface.

India's irrigated agriculture sector has been basic to India's economic development and poverty alleviation. One of India's major achievements is its rapid expansion of irrigation and drainage infrastructure. However, the major emphasis on development has been achieved at a cost. The importance put on new construction has diverted attention away from the need to ensure the quality, productivity, and sustainability of the services. Further, a governmental subsidy based approach has been used and this has resulted in irrigation and drainage services which, while enabling significantly higher productivity than from non-irrigated lands, are well below their potential. 'The Irrigation Sector' discusses directions for future growth, the framework for reform, and the reform agenda.

Societies around the world face an increasingly uncertain future as social and ecological changes create pressure on resource governance, and this uncertainty calls for new models that illuminate the intersections of civil society, public sector, and private sector resource management. This volume presents a diversity of collaborations between various governance actors in the management of the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus. It analyses the ability of emergent governance structures to cope with the complexity of future challenges across FEW systems. Divided into two sections, chapters in the first half of the book present a collection of case studies from around the world exemplifying how FEW nexus challenges are addressed in a multitude of ways and by a variety of actors. Chapters in the second half offer broader perspectives on the management of FEW and underline the lessons that emerge from applying a FEW lens to the question of natural resource governance. The varied examples in this book highlight that the management of FEW is often a question of reinventing, adapting, and building upon existing practices. Such practices are deeply embedded in unique socio-cultural, environmental, and political contexts as well as ‘hard’ infrastructures. Most of all, this edited volume seeks to communicate the wealth of ideas from committed individuals who continue to work to improve natural resource governance and our sustainable futures.

The Handbook of Cucurbits: Growth, Cultural Practices, and Physiology contains information on cultural practices, nutrition, and physiological processes of cucurbits under both normal and stressful conditions. It presents the history and importance of cucurbit crop production as well as exhaustive information on growth responses of cucurbits to var

Irrigated agriculture and the use of water resources in agriculture face the challenges of sustainable development. Research has advanced our knowledge of water use by crops, soil-water-solutes interactions, and the engineering and managerial tools needed to mobilize, convey, distribute, control and apply water for agricultural production. However, the achievements booked in user practice have revealed the need for new developments in the areas of resource conservation, control of environmental and health impacts, modernisation of technologies and management, economic viability and the social acceptance of changes. The contributions to Sustainability of Irrigated Agriculture cover most of the relevant disciplines. Besides its multidisciplinarity, the different origins, experience, backgrounds and practices of the authors provide a wide, in-depth analysis of the various aspects of water resource utilization in agriculture. The papers review scientific, technical and managerial aspects, highlighting the main problems, issues and future developments. The book covers the different aspects of sustainability, including environmental, technical, economic, institutional and social ones. Advances in irrigation science and engineering are dealt with, both on- and off-farm. Special attention is paid to the different components of water quality management, to the transfer of technology, and to capacity building.

"'Published by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, with funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture."

Fresh water is becoming an ever increasingly precious commodity, control of which could lead in the near future to the type of political instability now associated with energy shortages. This book addresses the different aspects of irrigation, including not only the management of water resources and scientific and technical aspects, but also matters related to policy and economics, researchers in academia and industry as well as professional practitioners and policy makers. Bringing together papers from the First International Conference on Sustainable Irrigation Management, Technologies and Policies, the book covers topics such as: Irrigation Controls; Irrigation Modelling; Irrigation Systems and Planning; Irrigation Management.

This book draws together the knowledge that has been gained in irrigation and drainage performance assessment over the last 10 to 15 yers. Performance assessment is an essential management task. If the use of water for irrigation is to be improved, then we must understand current levels of performance and identify measures for improvement. This book provides guidelines to enable practitioners to apply the process and procedures that have evolved. Developed by a working group of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID), it provides a theory and practice of how to audit and assess the performance of irrigation and drainage schemes. This book will be of interes to researchers and professionals in irrigation, drainage, soils and agricultural engineering.

Murray-Darling Basin, Australia: Its Future Management is a much-needed text for water resources managers, water, catchment, estuarine and coastal scientists, and aquatic ecologists. The book first provides a summary of the Murray-Darling River system: its hydrology, water-related ecological assets, land uses (particularly irrigation), and its rural and regional communities; and management within the Basin, including catchments and natural resources, water resources, irrigation, environment, and monitoring and evaluation. Additionally, the recent major water reforms in the Basin are discussed, with a focus particularly on the development and implementation of the Basin Plan. Murray-Darling Basin, Australia: Its Future Management then provides an analysis of the next set of policy and institutional reforms (environmental, social, cultural and economic) needed to ensure the Basin is managed as an integrated system (including its water resources, catchment and estuary) capable of adapting to future changes. Six major challenges facing the Basin are identified and discussed, particularly within the context of predicted changes to the climate leading to an increased frequency of drought and a hotter and dryer future. Finally, a 'road map' or 'blueprint' to achieve more integrated management of the Basin is provided, together with some 'key lessons' of relevance to others involved in the management of multijurisdictional river Basins. - Provides a consolidated account of the Murray-Darling Basin system; an area of global relevance to those interested in rebalancing river systems where the water resources have been over allocated - Offers a detailed analysis of the current system and its management, with a focus on water and ecosystem management - Discusses a number of key challenges, particularly those related to climate change, facing future reforms to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan - Provides a blueprint for changes needed to ensure the Basin is managed as an integrated whole (from catchment to coast)

This book explores creative interdisciplinary and potentially transformative solutions to the current stalemate in contemporary water policy design. A more open policy conversation about water than exists at present is proposed – one that provides a space for the role of the imagination and is inclusive – of the arts and humanities, relevant stakeholders, including landholders and Indigenous peoples, as well as science, law and economics. Written for a wide audience, including practitioners and professional readers, as well as scholars and students, the book demonstrates the value of multiple disciplines, voices, perspectives, knowledges and different ways of relating to water. It provides a fresh and timely response to the urgent need for water policy that works to achieve sustainability, and may be better able to resolve complex environmental, social and cultural water issues. Utilising a broad range of evidentiary sources and case studies from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere, the authors of this edited collection demonstrate how new ways of thinking and imagining water are not only possible but already practised, and growing in saliency and impact. The current dominance of narrower ways of conceptualising our relationship with water is critiqued, including market valuation and water privatisation, and more innovative alternatives are described, including those that recognise the importance of place-based stories and narratives, adopt traditional ecological knowledge and relational water appreciations, and apply cutting-edge behavioural and ecological systems science. The book highlights how innovative approaches drawing on a wide range of views may counter prevailing policy myopia, enable reflexive governance and transform water policy towards addressing water security questions and the broader challenges posed by the Anthropocene and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.