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This chapter considers the challenge of improving crop resource-use efficiency using biotechnology or traditional plant breeding. It argues that some of biotechnology's stated goals, such as more efficient use of water by crops, are unlikely to be achieved without tradeoffs. After providing an overview of crop genetic improvement via traditional plant breeding or biotechnology, the chapter discusses the importance of greater resource-use efficiency and increasing yield potential. It then explains how natural selection has improved the efficiency of photosynthesis as well as water-use efficiency and how tradeoffs limit biotechnology improvement of crop water use. It also assesses the potential of genetic engineering to improve nutrient-use efficiency and asserts that near-term benefits of biotechnology have been exaggerated. The chapter concludes with a review of biotechnology's possible benefits and risks.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the influence of civilian and American riparian doctrine in the 19th century. It then discusses the rights to underground watercourses, and the assignability of water rights and the appurtenancy rule.

Though irrigation policy stresses the need to promote conjunctive water management, interventions in groundwater and surface water are often completely isolated from each other. This chapter discusses institutional changes in a complex water resources setting in the Tinau river basin of Nepal. It aims at understanding the evolution of institutions for water management and governance in an area with a history of surface irrigation management subject to large-scale interventions in deep and shallow groundwater irrigation. The empirical evidence drawn from this research shows that the institutions that evolve for managing irrigation are very dynamic. They emerge as a result of the interaction of the different characteristics of various technologies and sources of water in a society undergoing more general transformations. The study shows that to understand resource use, technical performance, and future options in their transformation, we need to look beyond interventions and focus on local institutional processes.

This chapter investigates the economic history of water use and introduces the characteristic problems of private water law. It examines how water power became the technological foundation of industrialization, and why this process climaxed in late 18th-century England. It begins two millennia before the British Industrial Revolution, for it was the Roman law that first addressed the problem of water rights. The chapter shows why the Romans came to invent their elaborate system of water rights that provided the basis for much later law; and how later European societies with different technological bases created new forms of water law.

Water rights in England developed first through the application of title and nuisance actions to land-use disputes, and then by the adaptation of Roman law doctrine as lawyers categorized the results of such litigation. This chapter analyses the medieval law of proprietary incidents emerging from these two juristic sources.

This chapter discusses conceptions of water law in the 15th and 16th centuries. Topics covered include the use of the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas to explain natural rights, protection of immemorial flow, natural-right basis of riparian doctrine, pleading and substance in the late 17th century, and the theory of injuria sine damno.

This chapter focuses on the institution and policies for water management in India. It analyses data on sustainable water use index and explores the range of economic instruments and institutional options for managing water economies. It explains the legal, policy, and administrative measures for implementing the economic and market instruments and discusses the institutional framework for water management in a river basin, using the example of Sabarmati River Basin for greater clarity of the issues and approaches.

This chapter argues that the history of English riparian law is a story of the evolution of institutions and agencies able effectively to enforce the norms of commons management. Those norms and their supporting institutions evolved significantly over time, notably in the mid-18th century when the old jury-based system of fact finding and verdict began to break down. The underlying purpose of riparian law — effective commons management — remained constant notwithstanding the instability of riparian doctrine. Thus, the problems of allocating common water resources in the modernizing English economy were resolved by private treaty and custom, assisted by law.

This chapter examines the changes in water use hydrology in India, focusing on the issues of transboundary water management. It analyses how the green and blue water use for agriculture in the Narmada River Basin has changed over the past three decades. The findings indicate that there has been dramatic increase in the blue water diversion and use in the basin against green water use and that a significant portion of the diverted surface water is lost in percolation.

This chapter looks at the use of water in the modern economy, focusing on the period from the 1900s to the present day. Throughout human history, economic progress has been linked with increased water appropriation, control, and use. The global spread of industrialization from the 1900s onward further cemented this association. As a consequence, in today's economies, institutions, incentives, and innovations are geared toward finding and exploiting more freshwater resources. The result is an emerging global water crisis, which is predominantly a crisis of inadequate and poor water management. In the modern era, the global model for economic development has been the United States, and subsequently, many countries emulated the US approach to harnessing its water resources. Thus, how water management evolved in the US and other economies during the modern era has set the stage for today's water paradox.

Researches on water resources focused on assessing the availability and increasing efficiency of uses of water resources. Issues related to irrigation, interlinking of rivers, conflict of interests, large scale displacement, depletion of groundwater, and impact of climate change are discussed. Such themes as quality of portable water, status of water supply and sanitation, impact of energy-irrigation nexus, people-oriented and demand driven groundwater water management and aquifer management framework also are elaborated. Problems of flood and drought management are also examined. Scholar reviewed institutions and structure of water resource management, food security and sustainable agriculture, adaptive water resource management, rainwater harvesting, and feasibility of integrated water resources management and plan for groundwater recharge.

This chapter explores the social and economic implications of rising global water use and scarcity. In the near future, many countries, regions, and populations may face rising costs of exploiting additional water resources that could constrain growth as well as make it increasingly difficult to meet the needs of those poor populations and countries that face chronic water insecurity. If unchecked, water scarcity could increase the likelihood of civil unrest and conflicts. There is also a risk of disputes over the management of transboundary water sources and “water grabbing” acquisitions. Yet this crisis could be avoided. Inadequate policies, governance, and institutions, coupled with incorrect market signals and insufficient innovations to improve efficiency, underlie most chronic water problems.

This chapter studies the reform of water institutions and governance. Reforming governance and institutions to meet the challenge of growing water scarcity and competing demands is at the heart of the solution to the water paradox. Water governance consists of the processes and institutions by which decisions that affect water are made. Institutions are the informal and formal rules, arising from well-established social arrangements and structures, which provide incentives and determine outcomes in both individual and collective decisions related to water development, allocation, use, and management. Important influences on water governance include legal and social institutions that protect property rights, enforce contracts, and encourage collective action for the physical and organizational infrastructure needed to manage the resource. Thus, water institutions and governance are the bedrock upon which water management is built. If the foundation of governance and institutions is strong, then good water management ensues; if it is weak, then management will collapse.

This chapter first deals with the various physical factors that influence the performance of wastewater treatment technologies; degrees of treatment possible with these technologies in the most favourable environment; the types of wastewater treatment technologies that are technically feasible for different urban typologies; how economic considerations can be integrated in the process of selection of wastewater treatment systems for urban areas; and how various considerations are applied in the selection of WWT that are most suitable for an urban area. It identifies various efficient water use technologies and the situations in which they are most suitable. It finally deals with various technology interventions for leakage detection and prevention and reducing unaccounted for water; and identifies the key considerations that need to be integrated in the decision making with regard to adoption of leakage prevention measures.

This chapter discusses some basic characteristics that determine many of the current and future water challenges of the US. Topics covered include freshwater availability; freshwater use; changing trends in national water use; the importance of irrigated agriculture; why the dynamics of water use has changed in the US; and future water supply and demand. While the US is well-endowed with freshwater, the uneven distribution of water over both space and time has always posed management challenges. As the population and economy of the nation expanded throughout the twentieth century, more regions of the country reached their absolute peak water limits for availability and use, including economic, political, and environmental constraints. Water scarcity and quality problems are poised to become one of the most prominent natural resource challenges of the twenty-first century for the US and the world, with consequences for economic, social, and environmental interests.

This chapter explores select theories of a highly complex and comprehensive category of law—water rights. Water law in general remains somewhat under-researched despite the fact that water is a complex resource in and of itself—it acts as both commodity and territory. In parts of the world most affected by global warming, water may very well become a reason for war. It comes as no surprise then that certain restrictions have been placed on the usage and sustainability of water supplies, to say nothing of certain court cases centred on the use and ownership of water. The common law courts have seen fit to borrow certain theories from rather unlikely sources—Roman, civil, and American laws have all been cited at some point or another in the formulation of water laws, although this chapter is only able to touch the surface of modern riparian doctrine.

This chapter discusses historic and current trends in agricultural water use and presents national data in order to understand large-scale, long-term agricultural water supply and quality trends. It considers three key twenty-first-century water challenges: growing competition over freshwater supplies, increased scrutiny of agricultural runoff or nonpoint-source pollution, and climate change. It concludes with recommendations to ensure the continued viability of the agricultural sector in the US through partnerships and policies that promote agricultural management practices that sustain and protect water resources.

Gulf states have paid too much effort toward the greening of cities and too little to fundamentally changing the way they see agricultural lands and deteriorated natural habitats. Most of the greening programs prioritise techniques and interventions, such as introducing exotic plants, that are not adapted to the local environments. The result is that greening projects, especially those in deserts, have failed and proven unsustainable. This chapter discuss what the alternative -maintaining sustainable green desert landscapes- might look like. Proposed innovations include using native trees, instead of exotics, and introducing genetically modified crops designed to tolerate the abiotic stresses and salt tolerant plants (halophytes) to reduce the pressure on fresh water resources

This chapter explores the ecohydrology of tamarisk, with particular emphasis on water use, salt tolerance, potential for salinizing flood plains, drought tolerance and rooting depths, and ecological interactions with native plants on western rivers. It presents the working hypothesis that tamarisk is adapted to water stress, with low to moderate water use that tends to replace mesic vegetation when conditions on flow-regulated rivers become unsuitable for those species, rather than as an invasive species that displaces and out-competes native species under all conditions. It includes data on the annualized rates of evapotranspiration, transpiration, and stomatal conductance by tamarisk stands on western US rivers. It also cites the lack of evidence that simply removing tamarisk from a riverbank will improve salinity or allow native mesic vegetation to return.