Integrated and Participatory Water Resources Management - Theory (Volume 1a) (Developments in Integrated Environmental Assessment, Volume 1a) - Hardcover

Soncini-Sessa, Rodolfo; Weber, Enrico; Castelletti, Andrea

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0444530134 ISBN 13: 9780444530134

Publisher: Elsevier Science, 2007

Synopsis

Covering the more recent advances in Modelling, Planning, Management and Negotiations for Integrated Water Resource Management, this text brings together knowledge and concepts from Hydrology, System Analysis, Control Theory, Conflict Resolution, and Decision and Negotiation Theory. Without compromising on mathematical rigour, the book maintains a fine line between theory and application, methodology and tools, avoiding getting locked into excessively theoretical and formal development of the issues discussed. The non-technical aspects of water resource systems (such as societal, political and legal concerns) are recognized throughout the book as having a great, if not fundamental, importance to reaching an agreed-upon decision; they are therefore integrated into the more technical and mathematical issues. The book provides a unified, coordinated and comprehensive framework that will facilitate the increasingly appropriate application of the Integrated Water Resource Management paradigm by current and future practising professionals, decision-makers and scientists.

· Integration of technical modelling and control aspects with participatory and decision-making issues· Insightful and comprehensive treatment of theoretical contents, supported by practical examples· A wide collection of exercises and project examples based on real-world case studies (with complete solutions)

About this title

About the Authors

Rodolfo Soncini-Sessa received his PhD on System Analysis at Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 1972; he was with the Water Group of the International Institute for System Analysis (IIASA) several times since 1975 and thought Water Management in some Italian Universities before being full professor of Natural Resources Management at the Politecnico di Milano. He is chair of the IFAC TC on Modelling & Control of Environmental Systems, and in the Editorial Boards of Water International and Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software. His main research interests are in the design of DSS for participatory decision making in the area of water resources.

Andrea Castelletti received a MS degree in Environmental Engineering and a PhD in Information Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 1999 and 2005. He is Assistant Professor of Modelling and Control of Environmental Systems in the same university. His main research interests focus on modelling and control of water resource systems and Decision Support System design.

From the Back Cover

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), the new paradigm proposed by the Water Forum and UNESCO to cope with the water challenge of the new century, promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner, without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. Such a process must begin from the periphery and move towards the centre, from the particular towards the general, in brief bottom-up and not top-down, as is traditional, to construct a viewpoint that is holistic and shared, that embodies the viewpoints of the individuals as partial viewpoints all, however, equally considered.IWRM requires a multidisciplinary approach that integrates knowledge, concepts and tools from different fields ranging from Hydrology, through System and Control Theory, to Decision and Negotiation Theory. To this end, a procedure is required in which all these items are coherently framed and scoping, modelling, planning, policy design, evaluation and negotiations are not developed as separated processes but interpreted as the coordinated stages of the decision-making process. The target of this book is to define and develop such a procedure, namely, a Participatory and Integrated Planning (PIP) procedure, to analyse some of the main methods and tools to adopt in its stages and to demonstrate how they can be effectively intermeshed. Giving space to both theoretical and practical aspects, the book is tailored to researchers and university students, as well as water resources practising professionals.Ten appendices providing the essential background notions (statistics, system analysis and modelling, principles of negotiations and mediation) are available on the annexed CD, where the reader can also find a number of exercises and project examples that can be used to experiment with the PIP procedure. A twin volume (Volume 1B), focusing on the more practical aspects of the proposed procedure, is available in the same series: it shows how to get IWRM actually applied in a real life project.

Edition details

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0444530134
• ISBN 13: 9780444530134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 582