The world's human population now constitutes the largest driving force of changes to the biosphere. Emerging water challenges require new ideas for governance and management of water resources in the context of rapid global change. This book presents a new approach to water resources, addressing global sustainability and focusing on socio-ecological resilience to changes. Topics covered include the risks of unexpected change, human impacts and dependence on global water, the prospects for feeding the world's population by 2050, and a pathway for the future. The book's innovative and integrated approach links green and blue freshwater with terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem functions and use. It also links changes arising from land-use alteration with the impacts of those changes on social-ecological systems and ecosystem services. This is an important, state-of-the-art resource for academic researchers and water resource professionals, and a key reference for graduate students studying water resource governance and management.

The degradation of land and water resources resulting primarily from agricultural activities has had enormous impact on human society. In order to alleviate this problem, an advanced understanding of the state of our resources and the process of degradation is needed. "Conserving Land, Protecting Water" includes an overview of existing literature focusing on global patterns of land and water degradation and discussions of new insights drawn from successful case studies on reversing soil and water degradation and their impact on food and environmental security.