الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
Water Quality Management in the Americas
Considerable attention has been given during the past few years to the water crisis that many regions of the world may face in the coming decades. While the mag- tude and the extent of the global water scarcity problems of the future should not be underestimated, a serious analysis of the current trends indicate that the main water crisis in the coming years is most likely to stem primarily from water quality deterioration and lack of investment funds, rather than from physical water scar- ties per se, as is widely expected at present. In spite of the seriousness of continuing water quality deterioration in most countries of the world, water quality management continues to be a somewhat - glected issue in the international water community.
Water Institutions : Policies, Performance and Prospects
All the current trends indicate that water management will become even more c- plex in the future because of society’s higher demands for good quality water, and new and emerging impacts on the water sector due to the forces of globalisation. These include the liberalisation of trade in agricultural and manufactured products, information and communication revolution, and technological developments in - eas traditionally not considered to be water-oriented, like biotechnology. Impacts of these new and emerging forces on the water sector are still not fully understood or appreciated at present, but they are likely to change water use practices d- matically in many countries of the world during the coming decades.
Management of Transboundary Rivers and Lakes
As it circulates in the atmosphere, in the rivers, lakes, soil, rock, and in the oceans, it is the major conveyer of va- ous chemical substances and of energy, and it can also be called as the blood of the ecosystems of this planet. But at the same time water is interwoven in the va- ous functions of the nature and the human society in countless ways which makes water one of the most complicated challenges of the mankind today.Human beings are exploiting and enjoying, but at the same time polluting and deteriorating, the waters in various ways and water is equally important to the - man socio-economic system as it is to the nature. It may sound a bit anecdotal to say that water obeys no borders, but that is true; the hydrologic cycle with its r- ers, river basins, lakes, aquifers, rainfalls, oceans, etc., cross administrational b- ders without any passport control. River and lake basins are in most cases very different from the administrational borders that the human beings have set up.
