Where Land and Water Meet

Where Land and Water Meet
Author: Nancy Langston
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2009-11-23
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0295989831

Water and land interrelate in surprising and ambiguous ways, and riparian zones, where land and water meet, have effects far outside their boundaries. Using the Malheur Basin in southeastern Oregon as a case study, this intriguing and nuanced book explores the ways people have envisioned boundaries between water and land, the ways they have altered these places, and the often unintended results. The Malheur Basin, once home to the largest cattle empires in the world, experienced unintended widespread environmental degradation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After establishment in 1908 of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as a protected breeding ground for migratory birds, and its expansion in the 1930s and 1940s, the area experienced equally extreme intended modifications aimed at restoring riparian habitat. Refuge managers ditched wetlands, channelized rivers, applied Agent Orange and rotenone to waterways, killed beaver, and cut down willows. Where Land and Water Meet examines the reasoning behind and effects of these interventions, gleaning lessons from their successes and failures. Although remote and specific, the Malheur Basin has myriad ecological and political connections to much larger places. This detailed look at one tangled history of riparian restoration shows how—through appreciation of the complexity of environmental and social influences on land use, and through effective handling of conflict—people can learn to practice a style of pragmatic adaptive resource management that avoids rigid adherence to single agendas and fosters improved relationships with the land.

Novel Methods for Monitoring and Managing Land and Water Resources in Siberia

Novel Methods for Monitoring and Managing Land and Water Resources in Siberia
Author: Lothar Mueller
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 758
Release: 2015-11-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 3319244094

This book presents an analysis of land and water resources in Siberia, initially characterizing the landscapes, their ecosystems, crucial processes, human impacts on soil and water quality, and the status quo of available research. Further chapters deal with modern monitoring and management methods that can lead to a significant knowledge shift and initiate sustainable soil and water resources use. These include soil hydrological laboratory measurement methods; process-based field evaluation methods for land and water quality; remote sensing and GIS technology-based landscape monitoring methods; process and ecosystem modeling approaches; methods of resource and process evaluation and functional soil mapping; and tools for controlling agricultural land use systems. More than 15 of these concrete monitoring and management tools can immediately be incorporated into research and practice. Maintaining the functions of great landscapes for future generations will be the reward for these efforts.

Innovations in Land, Water and Energy for Vietnam’s Sustainable Development

Innovations in Land, Water and Energy for Vietnam’s Sustainable Development
Author: Mariano Anderle
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2020-11-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030512606

This book presents recent innovative trends in land, water and energy management in Vietnam. Presenting the main projects and outcomes of a close collaboration between Italian and Vietnamese researchers in the last three years, the book is divided into three main sections: environment, climate change and land management in Vietnam; energy for Vietnam; and cities and utilities in Vietnam. The first section focuses on water systems, including rivers and seacoasts, and on new growing methods for more sustainable agriculture. The second section addresses energy and wastewater. The country’s rapid growth is a major challenge in terms of reinforcing the electrical infrastructures, and as such this section offers an overview of the government’s planned measures and their impact on the Vietnamese power system. The third section highlights cities and utilities in the context of increasing urbanization, exploring the urban morphology of the Vietnamese metropolis, particularly Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Border Land, Border Water

Border Land, Border Water
Author: C. J. Alvarez
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 147731900X

From the boundary surveys of the 1850s to the ever-expanding fences and highway networks of the twenty-first century, Border Land, Border Water examines the history of the construction projects that have shaped the region where the United States and Mexico meet. Tracing the accretion of ports of entry, boundary markers, transportation networks, fences and barriers, surveillance infrastructure, and dams and other river engineering projects, C. J. Alvarez advances a broad chronological narrative that captures the full life cycle of border building. He explains how initial groundbreaking in the nineteenth century transitioned to unbridled faith in the capacity to control the movement of people, goods, and water through the use of physical structures. By the 1960s, however, the built environment of the border began to display increasingly obvious systemic flaws. More often than not, Alvarez shows, federal agencies in both countries responded with more construction—“compensatory building” designed to mitigate unsustainable policies relating to immigration, black markets, and the natural world. Border Land, Border Water reframes our understanding of how the border has come to look and function as it does and is essential to current debates about the future of the US-Mexico divide.

Coupling of Land and Water Systems

Coupling of Land and Water Systems
Author: A.D. Hasler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3642860117

This volume is concerned with many kinds of links between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Ecological systems on land interact with water in many ways that have been treated throughout the Ecological Studies series. Volume l's chapters 16 through 18, on Hydrologic Cycles, provide background that leads directly into the description of nutrient-hydrologic interactions in Chap ter 1 ofthe present volume. Volume 2 treats further aspects of water in forests, grassland, and crops. Volume 3 summarizes biological and environmental aspects of the whole Indian Ocean as a marine ecosystem that is notably influenced by upwelling of water and nutrients along several of its shorelines. Volumes 4 and 5 provide a closer look at the movement of water in crops and other woody or herbaceous systems and their soils, from viewpoints ranging from that of physics to that of practical agriculture. These volumes, especially Volume 7 on the evolutionary adaptation of ecosystems to mediter ranean types of climates, are concerned with the ecosystem's strategies of using water, which nature provides on a very seasonal basis. Volume 8 treats many aspects of seasonality in a variety of ecosystem types, including en vironmental signals that turn growth on and off at times that are generally appropriate for organisms' survival and for effective use of landscapes by mankind.

Land-water Linkages in Rural Watersheds

Land-water Linkages in Rural Watersheds
Author:
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2002
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789251047651

It is often assumed that upstream land use practices have important impacts on water resources and affect the downstream users at a watershed scale, Payments by downstream users to upstream users for "environmental services" such as good water quality, less sediments or more regular water flow are widely discussed. However, much controversy exists about the direction and magnitude of such impacts, how they influence the relationships between upstream and down-stream users, and which mechanisms allow for a sharing of resulting benefits and costs by all resource users in a watershed context. To address these issues, the FAO Land and Water Development Division organized the electronic workshop "Land-Water Linkages in Rural Watersheds" from 18 September to 27 October 2000. The present publication contains the proceedings of the workshop and two papers that set the stage for the workshop discussions. The complete workshop documentation, including discussion archive, background papers, and case studies, is included on the CD-ROM that accompanies the document.

Land and Water Integration and River Basin Management

Land and Water Integration and River Basin Management
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Total Pages: 100
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789251036556

Since water sustains life, effective management of water resources demands a holistic approach, linking social and economic development with protection of natural ecosystems. The effective management links land and water resources across the whole of a catchment area or groundwater aquifer. The Workshop addressed the broader issues of water management in the context of land use and the environment and within the framework of river basin management. More specifically, the Workshop dealt with: defining land and water linkages; developing a conceptual framework to predict land, water and plant nutrient interaction; establishing a landscape and river basin approach to integrated management of natural resources; and drafting a programme of action including applied research and modelling, education, extension and manuals and field projects aimed at promoting integrated management of natural resources. This publication contains the report and recommendations of the Workshop and edited versions of eight papers which were presented and discussed in the Workshop.

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1136498877

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture is FAO's first flagship publication on the global status of land and water resources. It is an 'advocacy' report, to be published every three to five years, and targeted at senior level decision makers in agriculture as well as in other sectors. SOLAW is aimed at sensitizing its target audience on the status of land resources at global and regional levels and FAO's viewpoint on appropriate recommendations for policy formulation. SOLAW focuses on these key dimensions of analysis: (i) quantity, quality of land and water resources, (ii) the rate of use and sustainable management of these resources in the context of relevant socio-economic driving factors and concerns, including food security and poverty, and climate change. This is the first time that a global, baseline status report on land and water resources has been made. It is based on several global spatial databases (e.g. land suitability for agriculture, land use and management, land and water degradation and depletion) for which FAO is the world-recognized data source. Topical and emerging issues on land and water are dealt with in an integrated rather than sectoral manner. The implications of the status and trends are used to advocate remedial interventions which are tailored to major farming systems within different geographic regions.

Governance for Drought Resilience

Governance for Drought Resilience
Author: Hans Bressers
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2016-05-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 331929671X

This book presents the findings of a team of scientists and practitioners who have been working on the project “Benefits of Governance in Drought Adaptation” (in short: the DROP project), which is included in the European Union’s INTERREG IVB NWE programme. The DROP governance team developed a Governance Assessment Tool (GAT), which allows the governance setting of a given region for planning and realizing drought adaptation measures to be assessed. Based on this assessment, recommendations can be developed for regional water authorities concerning how to operate most effectively towards increased drought resilience in this context. The GAT has been applied to six regions in Northwest Europe: Twente and Salland in the Netherlands, Eifel-Ruhr in Germany, Brittany in France, Somerset in the United Kingdom, and Flanders in Belgium. These regions are subject to drought aspects related to nature, agriculture and freshwater. This book will aid regional water authorities and other relevant stakeholders interested in governance assessment, whether that context is about water, more specifically about drought or flooding events, or other environmental issues. Further, the GAT can and has also been applied more broadly to a range of governance contexts for water management and beyond.

Linking People, Place, and Policy

Linking People, Place, and Policy
Author: Stephen J. Walsh
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1461509858

Linking People, Place, and Policy: A GIScience Approach describes a breadth of research associated with the study of human-environment interactions, with particular emphasis on land use and land cover dynamics. This book examines the social, biophysical, and geographical drivers of land use and land cover patterns and their dynamics, which are interpreted within a policy-relevant context. Concepts, tools, and techniques within Geographic Information Science serve as the unifying methodological framework in which landscapes in Thailand, Ecuador, Kenya, Cambodia, China, Brazil, Nepal, and the United States are examined through analyses conducted using quantitative, qualitative, and image-based techniques. Linking People, Place, and Policy: A GIScience Approach addresses a need for a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of GIScience for research and study within the context of human-environment interactions. The human dimensions research community, land use and land cover change programs, and human and landscape ecology communities, among others, are collectively viewing the landscape within a spatially-explicit perspective, where people are viewed as agents of landscape change that shape and are shaped by the landscape, and where landscape form and function are assessed within a space-time context. This book articulates some of these challenges and opportunities.