The Blue Revolution - Land Use and Integrated Water Resources Management

THIS BOOK DESCRIBES the progress of an emerging Blue Revolution: new plans, strategies and designs for land use and all water-related developments based on new understandings of the relationship between land use and water, and drawing on the ideals and concepts identified at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

Chapter 1 looks in depth at the new understanding of how land uses influence hydrological processes and water resources. Describing the various erosion types affecting drainage basins, the chapter identifies the key ideas, which are expanded later in the book. Chapter 2 dispels many of the myths surrounding forestry and water. This is achieved by subjecting a series of “mother statements” – that forests increase rainfall, increase runoff, regulate flows, reduce erosion, reduce floods and sterilize water supplies, and that agroforestry increases productivity – to critical evaluation. By adopting a more questioning attitude to the simplistic “old paradigm” perceptions about forests and water resources, it is hoped that the UN and other development organizations will become more aware of new paradigms relating to land use and water resources. Chapter 3 introduces an emerging method for evaporation estimates, based on a knowledge of the limiting processes, and proposed by the author in previous work. The limits concept is more holistic than conventional methods and applies a systems approach to examining the processes controlling evaporation. Calder argues that based on a knowledge of the climatic zone and the type of crop, “broad-brush” estimates of sufficient accuracy for many Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) requirements can be obtained.

In Chapter 4, the International Conference on Water and Environment in Dublin is introduced and its four key principles are summarized. The chapter explores the economic value of water and outlines the economic principles that would lead to effective water management. A review of the methods already developed to determine the value of water in its many uses clearly illustrates the need for a robust and accepted method for water valuation. Approaches to sustainable land use and integrated water resources management are described as the “blueprints for sustainability” and are discussed in the following chapter. Chapter 5 examines some of the major resource conflicts in the Nile Basin, Zimbabwe, Malawi, India, Australia, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the Philippines and South Africa and how they relate to the Blue Revolution. The chapter provides examples of different ways in which the Blue Revolution is being applied, or needs to be applied, and the new methodologies that are being developed to advance it.

The concluding section of the book carefully assesses the advantages and disadvantages of both hard and soft system tools, and produces Decision Support Systems for IWRM. The final sub-section evaluates socioeconomic development methodologies and their future in IWRM.