This Research Topic is a part of the Delft 2021: 1st Sociohydrology Conference series. To view the other sessions please follow the links below: Innovating a New Knowledge Base for Water Justice Studies: Hydrosocial, Sociohydrology, and Beyond Scale Issues in Human-Water Systems Water Resources and Human Behavior: Analysis and Modeling of Coupled Water-Human Systems Feedbacks and Coevolution Innovative Sensing, Observing, Measuring and Analysing Human-Water Data “Pluralistic water research” integrates the hydrological and the social to provide sustainable solutions to water crises. While relying upon robust quantitative modelling, sociohydrology captures crises across many waters (surface, ground and interstitial) along quantity and quality dimensions, hydrosocial unfurls power hierarchies in access to safe and required quota of water, be it for drinking or irrigation purposes. The success of engineering solutions laying out “hard” interventions such as solar powered irrigation, dams, high yielding crop varieties, water treatment plants and water distributions and purifications depend on “soft” socio-political, cultural and psychological variables like the political landscape, community behaviours and governance arrangements. How these soft parameters limit or advance the effect of hard interventions await more enhanced modelling and place-based qualitative analyses to disentangle various cause-effect pathways. While historical and process-based sociohydrology accommodates detailed temporal datasets and causal relationships across human-water systems, the hydrosocial paradigm reconciles “non-modern”, anti-hegemonic, water techniques and knowledge systems, animating local agencies within specific hydroscapes. This issue is dedicated to capture real time innovations through which water challenges have been confronted. It intends to unravel “storylines” along actionable water projects, reflecting on mediations across multiple actors and networks in specific spatio-temporal and cultural contexts, finally drawing our attention to the correlation between projected promises and actual realities. Situated at the crossroads of “boundary work”, we invite articles that will deploy a range of interdisciplinary frameworks like RANAS (Risk, Attitude, Norms, Ability, and Self-regulation), APIE (Awareness, Participation, Involvement and Engagement), HUPE (Historical Urban Political Ecology), etc. to demonstrate coupled sociohydrological and hydrosocial realties and in turn getting informed by empirical insights emanating from these actual water interventions. The final aim of the special issue is not to showcase water just actual interventions but to elicit a rigorous mapping of sustainable processes facilitating collective co-production of resilient water trajectories.

This Book includes selected papers that has been published in the Water journal Special Issue (SI) on Water Supply and Water Scarcity. Moreover, an overview of the SI is included. The papers selected for publication in the SI include review and research papers on water history, on water management issues under water scarcity regimes, on rainwater harvesting, on water quality and degradation, and on climatic variability impacts on water resources. Overall, the issue identify and highlight the main challenges in water sector, and particularly in management and protection of water resources and in use of alternative (non-conventional) water resources, especially in areas with demographic change and climate vulnerability in order to achieve sustainable and secure water supply. Furthermore, general guidelines and possible solutions for an improved and sophisticated water management system are proposed and discussed, such as the adoption of advanced technological solutions and practices that improve water-use efficiency and the use of alternative water resources, to address the growing environmental and health issues and to reduce the emerging conflicts among water users.

The revised and updated second edition of Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Changing Environment offers an interdisciplinary guide to the conditions responsible for water and sanitation related diseases. The authors discuss the pathogens, vectors, and their biology, morbidity and mortality that result from a lack of safe water and sanitation. The text also explores the distribution of these diseases and the conditions that must be met to reduce or eradicate them. The text includes contributions from authorities from the fields of climate change, epidemiology, environmental health, environmental engineering, global health, medicine, medical anthropology, nutrition, population, and public health. Covers the causes of individual diseases with basic information about the diseases and data on the distribution, prevalence, and incidence as well as interconnected factors such as environmental factors. The authors cover access to and maintenance of clean water, and guidelines for the safe use of wastewater, excreta, and grey water, plus examples of solutions. Written for students, and professionals in infectious disease, public health and medicine, chemical and environmental engineering, and international affairs, the second edition of Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Changing Environment isa comprehensive resource to the conditions responsible for water and sanitation related diseases.

"For almost 30 years, including during the period of occupation by the US- and UK-led Coalition Provisional Authority, authorities in Iraq have failed to provide Basra's 4 million residents with safe drinking water. The water crisis came to a head in 2018, when at least 118,000 people were hospitalized with rashes, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea because of contamination of the water in the Shatt al-Arab, the river Basra sits on. A severe water shortage from upstream has led to seawater incurring into the Shatt al-Arab so that farmers have had to irrigate their land with salt water - losing most of their produce over the last decade. This continuing water crisis is a result of a complex combination of factors including mismanagement of upstream flows leading to too little water coming to Basra; pollution in Basra and further upstream, including raw sewage, garbage, oil spills, and industrial and agricultural waste; damming by neighboring Iran and Turkey; and climate change. Corruption, including by local authorities, has also led to illegal use of precious freshwater resources. Since last summer the government has refused to make public any of its investigations into why the water poisoned people. Nor has it announced any significant measures to improve the quality of water in Basra in coming years. Iraqi authorities have an obligation to secure Basrawis' right to use their land and to safe drinking water and to inform the public when water sources are unsafe. Where authorities have violated these rights, they should ensure that people can access an effective remedy against those responsible"--Page 4 of cover

Water Conservation in the Era of Global Climate Change reviews key issues surrounding climate change and water resources. The book brings together experts from a variety of fields and perspectives, providing a comprehensive view on how climate change impacts water resources, how water pollution impacts climate change, and how to assess potential hazards and success stories on managing and addressing current issues in the field. Topics also include assessing policy impacts, innovative water reuse strategies, and information on impacts on fisheries and agriculture including food scarcity. This book is an excellent tool for researchers and professionals in Climate Change, Climate Services and Water Resources, and those trying to combat the impacts and issues related to Global and Planetary Change. - Covers a wide range of theoretical and practical issues related to how climate change impacts water resources and adaptation, with extended influence on agriculture, food and water security, policymaking, etc. - Reviews mathematical tools and simulations models on predicting potential hazards from climate change in such a way they can be useful to readers from a variety of levels of mathematical expertise - Examines the potential impacts on agriculture and drinking water quality - Includes case studies of successful management of water and pollutants that contribute to climate change

Despite significant progress in water and sanitation much still remains to be done. This report shows how the world has changed since 1990. It provides an assessment of progress towards the MDG target and insight into the remaining challenges. Section A provides an overview of progress against the parameters specified in the MDG target for water and sanitation in both urban and rural areas. It presents data for the world as a whole and compares progress across regions. The report goes on to examine trends over the MDG period by region and by level of service. It pays particular attention to the numbers of people who have gained the highest level of service in drinking water supply - piped water on premises - and those with no service at all who use surface water for drinking and practice open defecation. In order to understand the nature of progress it is important to look carefully at the way improvements in water and sanitation have benefited different socioeconomic groups. This report sheds light on equality gaps between urban and rural dwellers and between the richest and poorest segments of the population. It presents several new ways to visualize progress on extending service to the poor designed to reveal the nature of inequalities and give the reader insight into the great challenge that still exists in ensuring that progress reaches everyone. The JMP was established in 1990 and is celebrating its Jubilee Year in 2015. Section B provides a retrospective analysis of the evolution of water sanitation and hygiene monitoring over the past 25 years.

This technical document contains clear and practical guidelines on how to implement real water savings in agriculture through interventions for enhancing crop water productivity. A distinction is made between real water savings and “apparent” water savings. Apparent water savings record reductions in water withdrawals but do not account for changes in water consumption. Real water savings record reductions in water consumption and non-recoverable return flows (runoff or percolation). This guidance document emphasizes the paradox of water savings at field and basin scales, which usually do not translate into increased water availability for other users, as is commonly believed.

From cities to biofuels, competition for water is accelerating. Climate change threatens to intensify the onset and severity of the water crisis in several regions of the developing world: this is already happening throughout much of Asia, the Mediterranean, southwestern Australia, and the southwestern US. Along with water shortages, unsafe water becomes an increasingly widespread problem, too. As water crises trigger food and health crises, billions may slip further into poverty, leading to greater social and political unrest, new wars, and worsening national security. Out of Water doesn't just illuminate the coming global water crisis: it presents innovative solutions in agriculture, engineering, governance, and beyond, including state-of-the art techniques for integrated water management. This book will help raise the level of debate about water to the highest levels of government, and identify workable reforms and incentives to help water users utilize this crucial resource far more efficiently.

Always considered a classic renewable resource, after a hundred thousand years of farming and industry, rivers in many parts of the world are running dry and the groundwater is over pumped. In addition, the rate at which water sources are becoming contaminated with waste from humans, industry, and agriculture is truly alarming. Do these factors add up to a water crisis that merits drastic, large-scale action? Not necessarily say the editors of Water Crisis: Myth or Reality. They challenge this pessimism, concluding that while there are serious global water issues to be considered, the concept of a global water crisis is largely overstated. The book examines the issues and explores which conditions are permanent and unchangeable and which are remediable and changeable. The chapters explore when and where severe regional and local water problems occur and make suggestions about how they may be solved in a deliberate, non-crisis manner. The book covers recent breakthroughs in desalination technologies, the eco-sanitation revolution, international trade in agricultural products, methods of governance and negotiation in water allocation, and pricing and devolution of property rights and the roles they play in solving water issues. The editors, along with a panel of world-renowned experts, suggest that water issues can be solved over the next few decades using new technologies and processes.