In December 2002, a group of specialists on water resources from the United States and Iran met in Tunis, Tunisia, for an interacademy workshop on water resources management, conservation, and recycling. This was the fourth interacademy workshop on a variety of topics held in 2002, the first year of such workshops. Tunis was selected as the location for the workshop because the Tunisian experience in addressing water conservation issues was of interest to the participants from both the United States and Iran. This report includes the agenda for the workshop, all of the papers that were presented, and the list of site visits.

Water pricing to achieve conservation in scarce water resources is a major policy challenge. This book provides credible evidence from water pricing experiences in various countries around the world. The book chapters, written by experts in water pricing from various countries, documents the past 10 to 15 years of water pricing experiences in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, France, India, Israel, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa and Spain. The book includes also several chapters that review innovations in water pricing in various countries, such as new reform mechanisms, achieving social objectives via water pricing, achieving revenue recovery, water use efficiency and customer equity, and charging the poor.

The result of two years work by 19 experienced policymakers and two Nobel prize-winning economists, 'The Growth Report' is the most complete analysis to date of the ingredients which, if used in the right country-specific recipe, can deliver growth and help lift populations out of poverty.

The change in climatic conditions has resulted in a series of events from the melting of polar ice to the rising of sea levels. This has affected low-lying coastal areas by endangering plants and animals, agriculture and livelihood patterns in general, not to mention causing the outbreak of diseases like dengue, malaria, etc. It is, thus, imperative that mitigation measures to stabilize or reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide is brought about. A key step is the bio-fixation of carbon from the atmosphere. This book attempts to bring forth the role of vegetation in carbon sequestration. The introductory chapters of the book deal with the understanding of the physical attributes governing climate on earth, historical account of climate change, impacts of climate change on different environs and eco-strategies to combat climate change. Detailed account of mechanism of carbon sources and sinks, carbon credits and REDD+ are also discussed. A sizeable portion of the book is dedicated to the climate change and phonological variability, clean development mechanism and economic stability through natural resource management. Academicians, researchers, policy makers and environmental stakeholders will find it a useful and comprehensive guide in the floristic and arboreal potential to sequester carbon dioxide and will suffice the diverse needs of teaching and research.

For Iran the years since Ayatollah Khomeini's death have been dominated by the need for political consolidation and economic reconstruction. The book assesses the critical dilemmas of the regime both previous to and since the demise of its first spiritual leader. The vital issues of political succession and constitutional reform are addressed, contributing to an analysis of the structures and politics of power. How these have reflected upon economic policy is considered with close atttention being given to the reform policies of Rafsanjani. Foreign policy and security issues are discussed in both regional and global terms and include a study of Iranian defence strategy and its controversial re-armament drive. The final chapter examines the direction and context of all of these major policy areas, providing an analysis of whether the Islamic Republic truly represents a revolutionary alternative for the Third World or whether in fact it has developed in time to fall within a similar mould to other notable revolutions, casting by the wayside any uniquely Islamic agenda and alternatives. At the heart of this study is the belief that the Islamic regime has, since the cease-fire with Iraq, but more specifically since Ayatollah Khomeini's death passed into a new stage of development, referred to in the book as the `Second Republic'.