In Search of Sustainable Water Management

Book excerpt: This edited volume adeptly analyzes some of the most salient challenges that face water managers and policy makers: balancing private and public sector roles in water allocation, protecting environmental values and indigenous rights to water, avoiding transboundary water conflicts, and integrating the concept of sustainable development within water policies. . . the chapters in this book are comprehensive and well balanced. . . Kenney and his colleagues have put forth an important contribution to western water policy scholarship. They offer concrete ideas for sustainable water management in the western US informed by international cases, while acknowledging the West s unique political and social context. Tanya Heikkila, Journal of the American Water Resources Association Collectively the papers provide concise, insightful coverage of critical water problems in the US and carefully integrate relevant lessons from international water management into these discussions. Highly recommended. B.F. Hope, Choice Water issues in the American West share many similarities with those seen elsewhere in the world as population growth exacerbates longstanding problems of inappropriate water use and management. The contributors to this timely volume examine the universal challenge of sustainable water management to improve the use of water resources already developed and find ways to moderate our growing collective thirst. The volume begins with an exploration of the opportunities, arguments, and mechanisms for transferring lessons between the American West and foreign nations. Succeeding chapters cover individual issues such as: water allocation and the relationship between market mechanisms and government-based approaches, the challenge of environmental protection, the protection of cultural values with a focus on indigenous water rights, the significance of international and interstate rivers in promoting regional conflict and cooperation, and the role of water management in sustainable development. A comprehensive look at one of our most pressing issues, In Search of Sustainable Water Management will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners in the areas of water management, law, policy studies, economics, planning and public administration.