This book explores the many dimensions of water quality problems in different parts of the globe, with focus on problems of governance, from legal frameworks to social discourses and compensation measures. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.3 on Water and Sanitation emphasizes the centrality of improving water quality to attain sustainable development. Yet the obstacles to achieving this goal are significant. This book explores the variety of difficult, possibly intractable “wicked” problems of water quality governance around the world. Cases include the challenge of managing water from source to sea, exploring why attempts to do so have come up short in limiting harm to the Great Barrier Reef; differing social discourses on market based instruments in Canada; efforts to bring to closure the human legacies of Minamata methyl mercury poisoning half a century ago in Japan; current problems of mercury use in Andean mining; misalignment of established Eastern European water laws with those of the EU; water quality markets in China; the impacts of service coverage and quality on low income households in countries from New Zealand to Bangladesh and Malawi; the importance of perceptions, ranging from the use of treated wastewater by farmers in the MENA region to consumers in Fukushima and to users of the artificial river in Beijing’s Olympic Park; and finally the confluence of wicked problems in refugee camps facing COVID. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Water International.

This book provides an overview of facts, theories and methods from hydrology, geology, geophysics, law, ethics, economics, ecology, engineering, sociology, diplomacy and many other disciplines with relevance for concepts and practice of water resources management. It provides comprehensive, but also critical reading material for all communities involved in the ongoing water discourses and debates. The book refers to case studies in the form of boxes, sections, or as entire chapters. They illustrate success stories, but also lessons to be remembered, to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Based on consolidated state-of-the-art knowledge, it has been conceived and written to attract a multidisciplinary audience. The aim of this handbook is to facilitate understanding between the participants of the international water discourse and multi-level decision making processes. Knowing more about water, but also about concepts, methods and aspirations of different professional, disciplinary communities and stakeholders professionalizes the debate and enhances the decision making.

"Wicked" problems are large-scale, long-term policy dilemmas in which multiple and compounding risks and uncertainties combine with sharply divergent public values to generate contentious political stalemates; wicked problems in the environmental arena typically emerge from entrenched conflicts over natural resource management and over the prioritization of economic and conservation goals more generally. This new book examines past experience and future directions in the management of wicked environmental problems and describes new strategies for mitigating the conflicts inherent in these seemingly intractable situations. The book: reviews the history of the concept of wicked problems examines the principles and processes that managers have applied explores the practical limitations of various approaches Most important, the book reviews current thinking on the way forward, focusing on the implementation of "learning networks," in which public managers, technical experts, and public stakeholders collaborate in decision-making processes that are analytic, iterative, and deliberative. Case studies of forest management in the Sierra Nevada, restoration of the Florida Everglades, carbon trading in the European Union, and management of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania are used to explain concepts and demonstrate practical applications. Wicked Environmental Problems offers new approaches for managing environmental conflicts and shows how managers could apply these approaches within common, real-world statutory decision-making frameworks. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with managing environmental problems.

Provides a global analysis of policies to address deforestation, an important driver of climate change.

This republished Special Issue highlights recent and emergent concepts and approaches to water governance that re-centers the political in relation to water-related decision making, use, and management. To do so at once is to focus on diverse ontologies, meanings and values of water, and related contestations regarding its use, or its importance for livelihoods, identity, or place-making. Building on insights from science and technology studies, feminist, and postcolonial approaches, we engage broadly with the ways that water-related decision making is often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning—and to what effect. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance.

Solving today’s environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book’s strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the “plant-forward” movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.

This book presents a historically situated explanation of the rise of global water governance and the contemporary challenges that global water governance seeks to address. It is particularly concerned with connecting what are often technical issues in water management with the social and political structures that affect how technical and scientific advice affects decisions. Schmidt and Matthews are careful to avoid the pitfalls of setting up opposing binaries, such as ‘nature versus culture’ or ‘private versus public’, thereby allowing readers to understand how contests over water governance have been shaped over time and why they will continue to be so. Co-written by an academic and a practitioner, Global Challenges in Water Governance combines the dual concerns for both analytical clarity and practical applicability in a way that is particularly valuable both for educators, researchers, decision-makers, and newcomers to the complexities of water use decisions.

The global water and sanitation community is currently wrestling with the policy implications of two important realizations. The first is that it is quite possible for cities to actually run out of water–for the piped network to run dry. The second is that in many locations, basic water and sanitation interventions do not result in the large public health improvements that many water and sanitation professionals had hoped. As water and sanitation professionals work out the implications of these two realizations on policy and planning for water and sanitation improvements in the Global South, they will require an in-depth knowledge of local housing, water, and sanitation conditions, as well as a nuanced understanding of how households prioritize improvements in housing, water, and sanitation. The chapters in this book about Kathmandu illustrate the types of analyses of local conditions that are needed. Kathmandu holds many lessons for the global community about households’ responses to water scarcity and the management of water and sanitation services in periods of rapid urbanization and climate change. In Focus – a book series that showcases the latest accomplishments in water research. Each book focuses on a specialist area with papers from top experts in the field. It aims to be a vehicle for in-depth understanding and inspire further conversations in the secto

Between 1995 and 2005, the government of Alberta undertook major reforms to the way water is governed in the arid southern part of the province. Among the most significant reforms was the imposition of moratoria on new water licenses, the introduction of a market for buying and selling existing water licenses, and the adoption of a “conservation holdback” mechanism for returning some licensed water to the environment. In Water Policy Reform in Southern Alberta, B. Timothy Heinmiller looks at how and why these (and other) reforms were adopted after nearly a century of stasis on water policy. The study analyses over three decades of policy decisions, beginning with the Progressive Conservative victory in 1972 to the last major policy reform in 2007. Applying the Advocacy Coalition Framework, process tracing methodologies, and content analysis, the author isolates, identifies and reconstructs the actors and processes that shaped over thirty years of water policy in Alberta. Water Policy Reform in Southern Alberta offers important insights on the management of natural resources and the factors influencing meaningful policy change.

The purpose of this book is to present an overview of the latest research, policy, practitioner, academic and international thinking on water security—an issue that, like water governance a few years ago, has developed much policy awareness and momentum with a wide range of stakeholders. As a concept it is open to multiple interpretations, and the authors here set out the various approaches to the topic from different perspectives. Key themes addressed include: Water security as a foreign policy issue The interconnected variables of water, food, and human security Dimensions other than military and international relations concerns around water security Water security theory and methods, tools and audits. The book is loosely based on a masters level degree plus a short professional course on water security both given at the University of East Anglia, delivered by international authorities on their subjects. It should serve as an introductory textbook as well as be of value to professionals, NGOs, and policy-makers.