The role of hydropower has evolved from being a local, low-cost energy source to being a flexible resource offering a variety of ancillary services including regional frequency control and energy storage for large interconnected power systems. This paper explores this development as it relates...

Water constitutes a sector that overlaps with many other sectors and within itself has an array of quite different interests, stakeholders with varying mind-sets and consequently notable governance challenges. Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is the recommended approach to tackle...

Groundwater is the main source of irrigation in India, but there is a huge uncertainty about the number of groundwater structures. This paper compares data from four government sources on wells and tubewells, diesel pumps and electric pumps for time periods from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s....

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is now in place, marking a further significant step in water policy development and water reform in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). While it is an important planning and regulatory framework in its own right, and one that should further enhance the...

While conflict and cooperation in Central Asia are mainly focused on the larger basins (Amu and Syr Darya) and the implementation of the agreement reached directly after independence (1991), here an analysis of the history of water-sharing agreements in the Isfara Basin is presented. The paper...

India needs large dams for water storage, hydropower and flood control. It also needs long-distance inter-basin water transfers. However, India has a complex and strict environmental regulatory system which ignores a developing economy's needs and peoples' aspirations and is often impractical....

Infrastructure is essential for development, but by itself it will not contribute to improving the quality of life of millions of people unless it is part of an overall framework for development, economic growth, social equity and environmental protection. As mentioned by Nobel laureate Amartya...

Politics and human behaviour play key roles in the planning and management of shared water resources. The interactions between politics and water resources (hydropolitics) have been extensively studied, and the need to study the interactions between human behaviour and water-related activities...

Accelerating future water shortages require development of operational water governance models, as illustrated by three case studies: (1) upstream-downstream interactions in the Aral Sea basin, where science acts as problem recognizer, emphasizing scoping policies; (2) impact and adaptation of...