Product Description
Integrated studies on the assessment and improvement of soiland water quality have to deal almost inevitably with issues of scale,since the spatial support of measurements, the model calculations andthe presentation of results usually vary. This book contains theselected and edited proceedings of a workshop devoted to issues ofscale entitled: `Soil and Water Quality at Different Scales', whichwas held in 1996 in Wageningen. It is intended for environmentalresearchers, scientists and MSc and PhD students. Part 1 covers current issues and methodologies with scale related soiland water quality research. Part 2 covers agroecological andhydrological case studies in which scale transforms form an importantpart of the research chain. Part 3 consists of papers focusing onmethodologies and up and downscaling. Part 4 contains review papersbased on modellers' and statisticians' considerations as well as thepapers and posters presented during the workshop. Part 5 consists ofshort research notes. ... Read more

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While enhancing water-use efficiency (WUE) is a major goal in irrigated agriculture, drought management is the principal strategy to enhance production from rainfed agriculture. Management, conservation, and recycling are crucial to sustainable use of water resources in both irrigated and rainfed agriculture. The challenge of enhancing WUE is moreover confounded by the severe problem of water quality either because of high concentration of naturally occurring salts in the aquifer or due to pollution and contamination by urban, industrial, and other anthropogenic activities.

This book covers the following aspects related to water management:

• 1. Use of water management strategies to achieve agricultural sustainability under the current scenario of water scarcity;
• 2. Use of the four kinds of natural waters, i.e., rainwater, surface water, groundwater, and soil moisture (soil water) as well as irrigation drain water, municipal and industrial wastewater, to promote agricultural sustainability. How irrigation with groundwater polluted with arsenic and industrial water could lead to toxicity in crops, and how to avoid/prevent/phytoremediate this;
• 3. Water management in different agroclimatic environments, with particular reference to dryland/rainfed agriculture;
• 4. Biotechnological applications to develop crop varieties and agronomic practices that endow crops with drought tolerance and greater water-use efficiency.

Intended for agricultural scientists, as well as graduate students in agronomy, soil science, agricultural engineering, and plant breeding/genetics/biotechnology.

Product Description
The book deals with the potential conflicts over shared rivers in the Middle East, and with approaches towards cooperation regarding the Euphrates and Tigris, the Jordan and the Nile Rivers. Far from echoing the warnings about imminent water wars, the book highlights the potential for water savings and for cooperation in many fields inside and outside the water sector. Such creative approaches may foster interdependence, build trust, and create the incentives and conditions for an equitable sharing of international water resources in the Middle East. The text of the International Water Convention is also included. ... Read more

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The book deals with the processes in marine environment with particular emphasis on the interface processes (sediments- water and atmosphere-water) regarding organic matter and energy fluxes, carbon dioxide intake and transformation. Particular analytical methodologies concerning biosensors for analysis in situ are discussed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting supplemental book
A collection of lectures by professors attending a conference in Ustica Italy in 2000, this book covers a broad range of subjects including many that are often overlooked.We use this as a supplement to our textbook (Libes) in Marine Biogeochemistry/Chemical Oceanography.The chapters on aerosols, photochemical processes and a collection of chapters on toxicants (endrocrine-disrupting, organic and organometallic compounds) round out holes in the Libes book.Additionally, the other chapters present an up-to-date view of marine chemistry and organic matter cycling.This is not a true replacement for a more traditional textbook, but it is a great readings supplement. ... Read more

Product Description
With limited water resources to divert for agriculture,innovations aimed at increasing efficient use of irrigation water mustbe developed. Among the means to survive the consequences of waterscarcity and yet to sustain high crop production under irrigatedagriculture with decreasing share of water, deficient irrigationprograms are highly valued and their adoption is widely promoted.However, to ensure that the same level of crop yields as in fullirrigation can still be achieved with deficient irrigation, experienceregarding crop yield response to deficient irrigation programs must begained. This book discusses general concept and management issues ofdeficient irrigation practices, covering a wide range of field cropsincluding cotton, maize, soybean, wheat, sugar cane, and the like,based on five years of field research implemented in fourteendifferent countries, in Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia.Additionally, guidelines are given for experimental methodology anddata analysis for evaluating crop yield response to deficientirrigation. Experimental data, discussions and cited references willbe an asset not only to field irrigation engineers but also toresearch scientists including soil and irrigation scientists andagronomists, for whom the book would be an invaluable referencesource. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides diverse information and critical know-how to implement appropriate methodology and cost-efficient monitoring and evaluation systems better suited to assess the impacts of soil conservation and wastershed multi-sectoral development activities. It draws on a worldwide experience of specialists and a large array of ground-truthing projects and programmes. This book will meet its objective if it contributes to convince financing institutions and project managers that integrated watershed management activities have the potential to generate highly desirable impacts for the society at large, which have to be accurately measured by adequate M&E systems. ... Read more

Product Description
This publication focuses on soil and groundwater pollution in Central and Eastern Europe. In order to promote a successful implementaion of protection and remedial measures Soil and Goundwater Pollution, takes, besides scientific, legal and risk issues into account. The publication is addressed to scientists, engineers, lawyers, people from authorities and private enterprises to promote discussions on developments in legislation, inremediation and prevention measures against soil and groundwater pollution, and to make recommendations for future developments in technology, science and regulations. ... Read more

Product Description
Concern about groundwater contamination has focused attention on the processes that influence chemical fate in soil water systems. Independent of the mode of introduction of the chemicals, a major concern with respect to groundwater contamination is the passage of these chemicals through the unsatured zone and the relatively thin cover layers overlaying aquifers. Pollution due to diffuse sources is probably the most difficult pollution to model, because the loads are usually nonhomogeneous and governed by spatially and temporally nonhomogeneous and dynamic processes of the chemical and biochemical phenomena. Estimation techniques and transfer processes of required input data from existing databases in geographic information systems are provided in this work. Spatially variable input data such as soil type, hydrological conditions, land use intensity and atmospheric deposition of pollutants are derived from basic land and climate characteristics. A model for the evaluation of land use and water management scenarios is described. There are examples of field and regional studies for water management and policy analysis.The diskette gives the basic transport and process model with exercises. ... Read more

Product Description
In agricultural areas, the use or disposal of animal wastes directly impacts the quality of the land and water. The handling of potential problems associated with the waste-ecosystem interactions requires cooperation among a combination of disciplines-from agronomy to sociology. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the issues, Animal Waste and the Land-Water Interface covers the major factors critical for total watershed management, including the hydrological, chemical, biological, physical, political, and socioeconomic aspects. National and international authors provide expert coverage of all of these factors, in a successful attempt to continue and expand the communication, cooperation, and coordination among groups. ... Read more

Product Description
Aquatic sediments are important sinks of inorganic and organic pollutants as well as of nutrients in highly industrialized and densely populated areas. As many aquatic organisms live in or on the sediments, polluted sediments provide a pathway for the chemicals to food-chain organisms, and finally to man. Sediment-water interactions play a fundamental role in biogeochemical cycling of the elements. One of the most important reactions is the mineralization of organic matter during early diagenesis, which not only leads to anoxic conditions connected with a recycling of nitrate, phosphate, and ammonia but changes the chemical bonding of heavy metals into more soluble species. Our study carried out on freshwater sediments enabled us to show whether heavy metals and nutrients are released into the overlying water under changes in physicochemical conditions. The information is important to water management and sediment dredging activities in harbour areas. ... Read more

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Water is one of the most essential element for the survival of living beings. With the increase in demand and decreasing quality and quantity, water has become one of the major issues and problems in the world today. It is unevenly distributed geographically and temporally, resulting in surpluses for some people and a threat for others. This book covers topics on scientific aspects, governance, and best management practices. The book shows that good governance, policies for effective conservation and public participation are important for water use. There are a lot of examples of best management practices all over the world ? for effective and efficient use of water, community-based programs in North America, Asia and Africa. The book provides two case studies. ... Read more

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One of the main problems confronting the world of the 21st Century is a shortage of water. There is already severe scarcity in many regions of the world, causing tremendous problems for local populations and indeed entire societies. There is insufficient water available for the production of food to alleviate poverty and starvation; the lack of water hampers industrial, urban and tourism development, forcing restrictions on other sectors, especially agriculture; health problems arise as the deterioration of ground and surface waters favours water-borne diseases, which flourish in the absence of decent water distribution and sewerage systems. Water conflicts still arise in areas under stress, while water for nature has become a vanishing priority in such zones.

This book is a guide to the establishment of regional and/or local guidelines for developing and implementing new ideas for coping with water scarcity. The basic premise underlying the book is that water scarcity will persist, so personal, human and society-wide skills will be needed to cope with it while living in harmony with the necessary environmental constraints. The book provides basic information to assist decision makers, water managers, engineers, agronomists, social scientists and other professions (and their students) in formulating coherent, hopefully harmonious and consolidated views on the issue. Guidelines are also given for introducing the general public to the concept of water scarcity and how to deal with it.

Product Description
Originally presented as public lectures in the 1961 Resources for the Future Forum on Comparative Resources Policy and Administration. ... Read more

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Salinization of soils is a major threat to irrigated agriculture and counteracts the targets of costly public infrastructure investments. In this study, salinization is regarded as the outcome of an institutional arrangement which impedes the effective implementation of well-known and well-established control measures be they technical, managerial or economic. In public irrigation systems neither the management units nor the farmers are offered any incentives towards the control of high groundwater levels and salinization if the management units are embedded in a highly centralized non-market institutional setting. The author answers the question under which conditions management units and irrigators are active in halting and reversing the process of salinization. ... Read more

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Comprises the proceedings of a conference on environmental management, which has become one of the key priorities in many countries and is expected to continue to represent a dominant influence on planning and development of our physical environment.
Contents: Water quality and management; Slope stability and landslide management; Waste management; Hydrology & water resources; Natural hazards & environmental impacts; Geotechnology & the environment. ... Read more

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The book is divided into nine chapters, treating the following topics: a brief introduction of rainfall-runoff modeling and elements of catchment, precipitation, interception, surface detention and depression storage, evaporation, infiltration, runoff, and the runoff hydrograph; the factors affecting the curve number (CN), the determination of CN, the use of NEH-4 tables, sensitivity analysis, advantages and limitations of the SCS-CN method, and application to distributed watershed modeling; an analytical derivation of the SCS-CN method focusing on the Mockus and other methods; a determination of `S' using the volumetric concept encompassing an analytical derivation, verification of the existing AMC criteria, determination of S, use of NEH-4 tables and advantages and limitations of the modified model; the determination of `S' using physical principles, involving Fokker-Planck equation of infiltration, description of S, S/P relations for the modified model and determination of Ds from universal soil loss equation; simulation of infiltration and runoff hydrographs, with particular emphasis on SCS-CN-based infiltration and runoff models and application of infiltration and runoff models; long-term hydrologic simulation and hydrologic models of Williams and LaSeur, Hawkins, Pandit and Gopalkrishnan, and Mishra and others; rainfall-excess computation, soil moisture budgeting, catchment routing, and baseflow computation; transport of pollutants in urban watersheds; and sediment yield.

Product Description
Irrigation is the supply of water to agricultural crops by artifical means, designed to permit farming in arid regions and to offset drought in semi-arid regions. Irrigation has long played a key role in feeding expanding populations and is expected to play a still greater role in the future. Inevitably, however, irrigation entails the addition of water-borne salts which accumulate and induce the self-destructive twin phenomena of water-logging and salination. Moreover, this often negatively affects adjacent lands and water resources.

Is irrigation sustainable, and if so, how and under what conditions? That is the question that has impelled the writing of this book, which attempts to select and organize the disparate facts into a unified exposition, combining physico-chemical, agronomic, environmental, and economic principles into practical recommendations.

Chapters include: The Nature of Salinity, Effects on Crops, Irrigation Water, Waterlogging and Drainage, Salinity Control, Early Warning Systems, Scaling up from the Field, and a Conclusion which addresses directly the question of whether or not irrigation is sustainable. An appendix covers the economic aspects of salinity management. ... Read more