The world is on the brink of the greatest crisis it has ever faced: a spiraling lack of fresh water. Groundwater is drying up, even as water demands for food production, for energy, and for manufacturing are surging. Water is already emerging as a headline geopolitical issue—and worsening water security will soon have dire consequences in many parts of the global economic system. Directed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the 2008 Davos Annual Meeting, the World Economic Forum assembled the world’s foremost group of public, private, non-governmental-organization and academic experts to examine the water crisis issue from all perspectives. The result of their work is this forecast—a stark, non-technical overview of where we will be by 2025 if we take a business-as-usual approach to (mis)managing our water resources. The findings are shocking. Perhaps equally stunning are the potential solutions and the recommendations that the group presents. All are included in this landmark publication. Water Security contains compelling commentary from leading decision-makers, past and present. The commentary is supported by analysis from leading academics of how the world economy will be affected if world leaders cannot agree on solutions. The book suggests how business and politics need to manage the energy-food-water-climate axis as leaders negotiate the details of the climate regime that replace Kyoto Protocols.

Few people actively engaged in India's water sector would deny that the Indian subcontinent faces serious problems in the sustainable use and management of water resources. Water resources in India have been subjected to tremendous pressures from increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, and modern agricultural methods. The inadequate access to clean drinking water, increase in water related disasters such as floods and droughts, vulnerability to climate change and competition for the resource amongst different sectors and the region poses immense pressures for sustainability of water systems and humanity. Water Security in India addresses these issues head on, analyzing the challenges that contemporary India faces if it is to create a water-secure world, and providing a hopeful, though guarded, road-map to a future in which India's life-giving and life-sustaining fresh water resources are safe, clean, plentiful, and available to all, secured for the people in a peaceful and ecologically sustainable manner.

This publication examines the critical issues surrounding water security (water shortage, water excess, inadequate water quality, the resilience of freshwater systems), providing a rationale for a risk-based approach and the management of trade-offs between water and other policies.

Nature-Based Solutions and Water Security: An Action Agenda for the 21st Century presents an action agenda for natural infrastructure on topics of standards and principles, technical evaluation and design tools, capacity building and innovative finance. Chapters introduce the topic and concepts of natural infrastructure, or nature-based solutions (NBS) and water security, with important background on the urgency of the global water crisis and the role that NBS can, and should play, in addressing this crisis. Sections also present the community of practice's collective thinking on a prioritized action agenda to guide more rapid progress in mainstreaming NBS. With contributions from global authors, including key individuals and organizations active in developing NBS solutions, users will also find important conclusions and recommendations, thus presenting a collaboratively developed, consensus roadmap to scaling NBS. Covers all issues of water security and natural infrastructures Presents a comprehensive state of synthesis, providing readers with a solid grounding in the field of natural infrastructures and water security Includes a fully workable and intuitive roadmap for action that is presented as a guide to the most important actions for practitioners, research questions for academics, and information on promising careers for students entering the field

This book highlights the likely impacts of climate change in terms of global and national water securities, how different countries are attempting to address these complex problems and to what extent they are likely to succeed. A major global concern at present, especially after the social and economic havoc that has been caused by COVID-19 in only one year, is how we can return to earlier levels of economic development patterns and then further improve the process so that sustainable development goals are reached to the extent possible by 2030, in both developed and developing countries. Mankind is now facing two existential problems over the next several decades. These are climate change and whether the world will have access to enough water to meet all its food, energy, environment and health needs. Much of expected climate change impacts can be seen through the lens of extreme hydrological events, like droughts, floods and other extreme hydrometeorological events. Chapter 7 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.Chapter 12 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Concise and readable, Drinking Water Security for Engineers, Planners and Managers provides an overview of issues including infrastructure planning, planning to evaluate vulnerabilities and potential threats, capital improvement planning, and maintenance and risk management. This book also covers topics regarding potential contaminants, available water security technologies, analytical methods, and sensor technologies and networks. Other topics include transport and containment of contaminated water, treatment technologies and the treatability of contaminants. Threat and vulnerability risk assessments and capital improvement Identification and characterization of potential contaminants and clean up Application of information assurance techniques to computerized systems

Water security has received increasing attention in the scientific and public policy communities in recent years. The Handbook on Water Security is a much-needed resource that helps the reader navigate between the differing interpretations of water security. It explains the various dimensions of the topic by approaching it both conceptually and thematically, as well as in relation to experiences in different regions of the world. The international contributors explore the various perspectives on water security to show that it has multiple meanings that cannot easily be reconciled. Topics discussed include: challenges from human security to consumerism, how trade policies can help to achieve water security in a transboundary setting, the potential of risk-based governance arrangements and the ecology of water security. Scholars and postgraduate students in the social sciences working on water-related issues will find this book to be of substantial interest. It will strongly appeal to policymakers and practitioners looking at the strengths and limitations of water security.