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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.
Intensive use of groundwater has resolved the demand for
drinking water and, through irrigation, has contributed to the
eradication of malnourishment in many developing countries. The
spectacular worldwide increase in groundwater use in the last
decades, especially in arid and semi-arid regions, has been a
silent revolution carried out by millions of small farmers. In some
instances, groundwater abstraction has caused problems of quality
degradation, excessive drawdown of groundwater levels, land
subsidence, reduction of spring and baseflows or degradation of
groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Most of these problems could be
anticipated, mitigated, or even avoided with more active water
agencies, adequate regulations and users participation in
management. Groundwater Intensive Use contains a selection of
papers presented at a symposium held in December 2002 in Valencia,
Spain. It constitutes a step forward in creating a greater
worldwide awareness of the relevance of groundwater in water
resources policy. The book presents new ideas and accounts of
recent advances in technical, economic, legal, administrative and
political issues. It addresses groundwater development to
ecosystems sustainability, through different or complementary
approaches. A wide series of case studies from North and South
America, Europe, South Asia and North and Sub-Saharan Africa cover
the various issues. These case studies represent countries with a
wide diversity of social circumstances, from areas in which
development is emerging, to communities with a long history of
successful groundwater use. "
This book provides an overview, by leading world experts, on key
issues in global water and food security. The book is divided in a
series of over-arching themes and sections. The first part of the
book provides an overview of water and food security. The second
and third sections look at global trade and virtual water trade,
and provide some specific examples on the application of the water
footprint at different scales. The fourth section sets the context
into wider debates related to global sustainable production and
consumption. The last section of the book addresses the role of the
silent groundwater revolution to help address water and food
security; the water/energy nexus, and the potential for generating
new water.
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