It is no coincidence that exceptional hydrological phenomena are found in protected areas. However, in many cases, the conservation strategies for hydraulic resources in protected areas are ignored, or simply deprived of the attention they require. There are many types of suitable management strategies for planning and protecting our valuable treasures. Management of Water Resources in Protected Areas examines water conservation in protected areas and discusses a broad range of issues from human impact to risks and management. It places hydraulic management as a cornerstone of conservation.

Purification and reuse of wastewaters 2. Impact of public use on water resources 3. Vulnerability and risk of aquifers 4. Research of monitoring of water resources 6. Information, popularization and training.

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Management of Water Resources in Protected Areas | NHBS Academic & Professional Books

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Click to have a closer look. About this book Contents Customer reviews Related titles. About this book Natural ecosystems are heavily dependent on water, as it is essential to the development of life. Information, popularization and training Customer Reviews Review this book. Other titles in Environmental Earth Sciences.

Advances in the Research of Aquatic Environment, Volume 2. Advances in the Research of Aquatic Environment, Volume 1. For many rivers in large valleys, this unseen component of flow may greatly exceed the visible flow. The hyporheic zone often forms a dynamic interface between surface water and groundwater from aquifers, exchanging flow between rivers and aquifers that may be fully charged or depleted.

This is especially significant in karst areas where pot-holes and underground rivers are common. Groundwater is fresh water located in the subsurface pore space of soil and rocks. It is also water that is flowing within aquifers below the water table. Sometimes it is useful to make a distinction between groundwater that is closely associated with surface water and deep groundwater in an aquifer sometimes called " fossil water ". Groundwater can be thought of in the same terms as surface water: The critical difference is that due to its slow rate of turnover, groundwater storage is generally much larger in volume compared to inputs than it is for surface water.

This difference makes it easy for humans to use groundwater unsustainably for a long time without severe consequences. Nevertheless, over the long term the average rate of seepage above a groundwater source is the upper bound for average consumption of water from that source. The natural input to groundwater is seepage from surface water. The natural outputs from groundwater are springs and seepage to the oceans. If the surface water source is also subject to substantial evaporation, a groundwater source may become saline.

This situation can occur naturally under endorheic bodies of water, or artificially under irrigated farmland. In coastal areas, human use of a groundwater source may cause the direction of seepage to ocean to reverse which can also cause soil salinization. Humans can also cause groundwater to be "lost" i. Humans can increase the input to a groundwater source by building reservoirs or detention ponds. Several schemes have been proposed to make use of icebergs as a water source, however to date this has only been done for research purposes. Glacier runoff is considered to be surface water.

The Himalayas, which are often called "The Roof of the World", contain some of the most extensive and rough high altitude areas on Earth as well as the greatest area of glaciers and permafrost outside of the poles. To complicate matters, temperatures there are rising more rapidly than the global average. In Nepal, the temperature has risen by 0. Desalination is an artificial process by which saline water generally sea water is converted to fresh water. The most common desalination processes are distillation and reverse osmosis. Desalination is currently expensive compared to most alternative sources of water, and only a very small fraction of total human use is satisfied by desalination.

It is usually only economically practical for high-valued uses such as household and industrial uses in arid areas. However, there is growth in desalination for agricultural use, and highly populated areas such as Singapore or California. To produce food for the now over 7 billion people who inhabit the planet today requires the water that would fill a canal ten metres deep, metres wide and kilometres long.

Around fifty years ago, the common perception was that water was an infinite resource. At that time, there were fewer than half the current number of people on the planet. People were not as wealthy as today, consumed fewer calories and ate less meat, so less water was needed to produce their food. They required a third of the volume of water we presently take from rivers.

Today, the competition for water resources is much more intense. This is because there are now seven billion people on the planet, their consumption of water-thirsty meat and vegetables is rising, and there is increasing competition for water from industry , urbanisation biofuel crops, and water reliant food items.

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In the future, even more water will be needed to produce food because the Earth's population is forecast to rise to 9 billion by An assessment of water management in agriculture sector was conducted in by the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka to see if the world had sufficient water to provide food for its growing population. It found that a fifth of the world's people, more than 1. In addition, one third of the world's population does not have access to clean drinking water, which is more than 2. The report found that it would be possible to produce the food required in future, but that continuation of today's food production and environmental trends would lead to crises in many parts of the world.

To avoid a global water crisis, farmers will have to strive to increase productivity to meet growing demands for food, while industry and cities find ways to use water more efficiently. In some areas of the world, irrigation is necessary to grow any crop at all, in other areas it permits more profitable crops to be grown or enhances crop yield. Various irrigation methods involve different trade-offs between crop yield, water consumption and capital cost of equipment and structures. Irrigation methods such as furrow and overhead sprinkler irrigation are usually less expensive but are also typically less efficient, because much of the water evaporates, runs off or drains below the root zone.

Other irrigation methods considered to be more efficient include drip or trickle irrigation , surge irrigation , and some types of sprinkler systems where the sprinklers are operated near ground level.

Water resources

These types of systems, while more expensive, usually offer greater potential to minimize runoff, drainage and evaporation. Any system that is improperly managed can be wasteful, all methods have the potential for high efficiencies under suitable conditions, appropriate irrigation timing and management. Some issues that are often insufficiently considered are salinization of groundwater and contaminant accumulation leading to water quality declines. As global populations grow, and as demand for food increases in a world with a fixed water supply, there are efforts under way to learn how to produce more food with less water, through improvements in irrigation [11] methods [12] and technologies , agricultural water management , crop types, and water monitoring.

Aquaculture is a small but growing agricultural use of water. Freshwater commercial fisheries may also be considered as agricultural uses of water, but have generally been assigned a lower priority than irrigation see Aral Sea and Pyramid Lake. Water withdrawal can be very high for certain industries, but consumption is generally much lower than that of agriculture.

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Water is used in renewable power generation. Hydroelectric power derives energy from the force of water flowing downhill, driving a turbine connected to a generator. This hydroelectricity is a low-cost, non-polluting, renewable energy source. Significantly, hydroelectric power can also be used for load following unlike most renewable energy sources which are intermittent. Ultimately, the energy in a hydroelectric powerplant is supplied by the sun.

Heat from the sun evaporates water, which condenses as rain in higher altitudes and flows downhill.

Pumped-storage hydroelectric plants also exist, which use grid electricity to pump water uphill when demand is low, and use the stored water to produce electricity when demand is high. Hydroelectric power plants generally require the creation of a large artificial lake. Evaporation from this lake is higher than evaporation from a river due to the larger surface area exposed to the elements, resulting in much higher water consumption.

The process of driving water through the turbine and tunnels or pipes also briefly removes this water from the natural environment, creating water withdrawal. The impact of this withdrawal on wildlife varies greatly depending on the design of the powerplant. Pressurized water is used in water blasting and water jet cutters. Also, very high pressure water guns are used for precise cutting.

It works very well, is relatively safe, and is not harmful to the environment. It is also used in the cooling of machinery to prevent overheating, or prevent saw blades from overheating. This is generally a very small source of water consumption relative to other uses. Water is also used in many large scale industrial processes, such as thermoelectric power production, oil refining, fertilizer production and other chemical plant use, and natural gas extraction from shale rock.

Discharge of untreated water from industrial uses is pollution. Pollution includes discharged solutes chemical pollution and increased water temperature thermal pollution. Industry requires pure water for many applications and utilizes a variety of purification techniques both in water supply and discharge. Most of this pure water is generated on site, either from natural freshwater or from municipal grey water. Industrial consumption of water is generally much lower than withdrawal, due to laws requiring industrial grey water to be treated and returned to the environment.

Thermoelectric power plants using cooling towers have high consumption, nearly equal to their withdrawal, as most of the withdrawn water is evaporated as part of the cooling process. The withdrawal, however, is lower than in once-through cooling systems. Basic domestic water requirements have been estimated by Peter Gleick at around 50 liters per person per day, excluding water for gardens.

Drinking water is water that is of sufficiently high quality so that it can be consumed or used without risk of immediate or long term harm. Such water is commonly called potable water. In most developed countries, the water supplied to domestic, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard even though only a very small proportion is actually consumed or used in food preparation. Sustainable management of water resources including provision of safe and reliable supplies for drinking water and irrigation, adequate sanitation, protection of aquatic ecosystems, and flood protection poses enormous challenges in many parts of the world.

Recreational water use is usually a very small but growing percentage of total water use. Recreational water use is mostly tied to reservoirs. If a reservoir is kept fuller than it would otherwise be for recreation, then the water retained could be categorized as recreational usage. Release of water from a few reservoirs is also timed to enhance whitewater boating, which also could be considered a recreational usage. Other examples are anglers, water skiers, nature enthusiasts and swimmers. Recreational usage is usually non-consumptive.

Management of Water Resources in Protected Areas

Golf courses are often targeted as using excessive amounts of water, especially in drier regions. It is, however, unclear whether recreational irrigation which would include private gardens has a noticeable effect on water resources. This is largely due to the unavailability of reliable data.


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Additionally, many golf courses utilize either primarily or exclusively treated effluent water, which has little impact on potable water availability. Some governments, including the Californian Government, have labelled golf course usage as agricultural in order to deflect environmentalists ' charges of wasting water. However, using the above figures as a basis, the actual statistical effect of this reassignment is close to zero.

In Arizona, an organized lobby has been established in the form of the Golf Industry Association, a group focused on educating the public on how golf impacts the environment. Recreational usage may reduce the availability of water for other users at specific times and places. For example, water retained in a reservoir to allow boating in the late summer is not available to farmers during the spring planting season. Water released for whitewater rafting may not be available for hydroelectric generation during the time of peak electrical demand. Explicit environment water use is also a very small but growing percentage of total water use.

Environmental water may include water stored in impoundments and released for environmental purposes held environmental water , but more often is water retained in waterways through regulatory limits of abstraction. Like recreational usage, environmental usage is non-consumptive but may reduce the availability of water for other users at specific times and places. For example, water release from a reservoir to help fish spawn may not be available to farms upstream, and water retained in a river to maintain waterway health would not be available to water abstractors downstream.

The concept of water stress is relatively simple: According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development , it applies to situations where there is not enough water for all uses, whether agricultural, industrial or domestic.

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Defining thresholds for stress in terms of available water per capita is more complex, however, entailing assumptions about water use and its efficiency. Nevertheless, it has been proposed that when annual per capita renewable freshwater availability is less than 1, cubic meters, countries begin to experience periodic or regular water stress. Below 1, cubic meters, water scarcity begins to hamper economic development and human health and well-being.

In , the world population was 6.