Bücher der Reihe SpringerBriefs in Water Science and Technology

This book is about the process of water management decentralization in African countries, which is seen as a means of advancing river basin management at the lowest appropriate level.

This book contains detailed information about the traditional rainwater structures. Harvesting rainwater is becoming as a practical adaptation strategy for urban areas that are vulnerable to climate alteration. In the past, rainwater harvesting was more significant than it is today. Studies show that a variety of traditional and age-old rainwater gathering techniques were created or put into use in reaction to earlier climate change incidents. According to history, both floods and droughts were frequent occurrences in ancient India. Perhaps this explains why each region of the nation has its own traditional water gathering practices that are representative of the local physical and cultural diversity. All of these methods can be seen as a concept of harvesting rain whenever and wherever it falls. Water makes up 70.9 % of the Earth's surface, mainly in the form of oceans and seas. Water is found in modest proportions as 1.7 % groundwater, 1.7 % glaciers and ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland, vapour, clouds (ice and liquid water suspended in air), and 0.001% precipitation in the air. Evaporation, transpiration, evapo-transpiration, condensation, precipitation, root absorption, percolation, infiltration, base flow and runoff are processes that water goes through on its way to the sea.

This book focuses on natural and manmade structures which are used for drawing groundwater to the surface. Groundwater extraction structures include open dug wells (small-diameter open wells and large-diameter irrigation wells), tube wells, filter point wells, bore wells, surangams, and dug-cum-bore wells. Early abstraction structures were mainly natural but more manmade structures are now in use due to technological developments. Upto 30% of the freshwater supply in the world comes from groundwater, and among freshwater resources, groundwater plays a crucial role in the drinking water supply. Due to rapid population growth, increased urbanization, changing lifestyles, industrial growth, and agricultural methods, the demand for groundwater continues to increase. The book will be of interest to faculty and students of geology, geography and civil engineering, research scholars, hydrogeologists, planners, and professionals in the field of groundwater.

Sub-Saharan Africa grapples with many public health issues such as food insecurity, increased prevalence of infectious diseases, limited access to clean water supply, poor nutrition and lack of improved health services for its populace (IMF, 2021). Of all these challenges, the inaccessibility of clean water supply for both the rural and urban populace is the most pressing challenge, which has been exacerbated by extensive pollution and climate change crises. The issue of water access and supply affects both rural and urban populations. At rural areas water is accessed in yard taps and in arid regions through water kiosks managed by private owners. Among the urban poor, water access is compromised by poor supply infrastructure especially among informal settlers and risks such as contamination during the supply chain are imminent This book therefore seeks to close this knowledge gap by 1) generating a water resources inventory for Sub-Saharan Africaregion, 2) exploring the water crises in both its urban and rural settings, 3) understanding the causatives of the crises and 4) suggesting viable solutions to manage the water challenges using named case studies. The aim is to improve understanding on the region¿s water problems and advise scholars and policymakers on priority research areas and action plans to better water management for sustainable development.

This book presents a detailed analysis in relation to human health risk assessment of the main toxic chemical pollutants in urban stormwater generated from urban traffic and land use activities. The knowledge presented in this book was derived based on comprehensive experimental investigations including field sampling, laboratory testing, mathematical modelling, spatial analysis and multivariate and univariate statistical data analyses.The key highlights of the book include the quantitative assessment of the human health risk posed by key toxic chemical pollutants in urban stormwater and the development of linkages between risk and traffic and land use. Additionally, a suite of mathematical equations are presented to predict human health risk based on traffic and land use characteristics through mathematical modelling. These outcomes can significantly assist in effective stormwater risk management under changing traffic and land use in the urban environment. The knowledge presented is of particular interest to readers such as stormwater treatment design specialists, decision-makers and urban planners since these outcomes provide practical suggestions and recommendations for effective urban stormwater treatment design.

This book presents comprehensive knowledge regarding the spatial and temporal distributions, influential factors, interactions with coexisting contaminants, migration behavior, and environmental risk posed by microplastics (MPs) in urban waterways. It provides a novel theoretical approach for the combined risks from MPs and coexisting contaminants, and advanced three-dimensional modeling techniques for different MPs¿ dispersal and transport behaviors in urban waterways. Additionally, this book presents a scientifically robust investigation on the correlations between various influential factors and heterogeneity in relation to MP presence in river systems. The new knowledge presented would be of particular interest to readers such as urban water management professionals, urban plastic waste regulators, decision-makers, urban planners, and water environment quality model developers, as it provides practical solutions and recommendations for plastic-polluted river quality improvement from a risk management perspective.

This book mainly provides the current status of water pollution faced by China under rapid changing environment and the actions that have been taken for prevention and treatment of water pollution. It points out that the water pollution situation is severe. Facing water pollution, China's experiences include several aspects on source control and pollution interception, internal nutrient removal of sediment, ecological restoration, and water transfer policy. There exists both the opportunity and challenge for the prevention and control of water pollution in China. The book contains numerous charts and diagrams which further illustrating China's paths to clean water.

This book presents a case study on a semi-arid region, Maharashtra State, India, and discusses problems concerning a broad range of areas: sustainable watershed development;

This book addresses the prediction of the Water Quality Index (WQI) at Perak River, State of Perak, Malaysia, using a fuzzy multiple linear regression model to tackle the uncertainty in the measurements of six key parameters ΓÇô dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), pH value (pH) and ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3-NL). Given its scope, the book is suitable for graduate students, researchers and water quality scientists.

This book discusses the physicochemical changes (transformations) that metals deposited on urban road surfaces undergo during dry weather periods, in order to provide insights into their potential impacts on stormwater quality.

This book presents a selected literature review and case studies for both physical and virtual water transfer. the three cases presented in the Yangtze River Basin demonstrate the role of physical water transfer in improving water quality and restoring water ecosystems;

This study can be a framework for other developing countries to be used in quantifying and filling the gap in their knowledge about practices that can help in increasing their food security through increasing food production.

The book scientifically delineates and classifies the aquifers, illustrates the geology, hydrogeology, geomorphology, geophysics, geometry, and water quality of the different aquifers, and explores the nature and extent of seawater intrusion in the different aquifer systems.

This book provides insights on and tools for the characterization of island aquifers, as illustrated by the example of the coral islands of Lakshadweep in India.

Supplemented by color illustrations, figures and tables, as well as a comprehensive bibliography for further research on specific issues, the book studies groundwater behavior in different types of plains, such as alluvial, deltaic, piedmont, intermountain and marine, and suggests a methodology for hydrogeological studies.

This book presents new findings on intrinsic variability in pollutant build-up and wash-off processes by identifying the characteristics of underlying process mechanisms, based on the behaviour of various-sized particles.

Furthermore, the effect of intercropping (two crops use the applied water to one of them), and/or using crop rotations (arrange crops to reduce the applied water, increase water productivity and sustain soil fertility) on production and consumed irrigation water by crops were comprehensively analyzed.

An Introduction to Mine Hydrogeology briefly describes the subject of hydrogeology so that this knowledge can be integrated into mine development planning. Further, it discusses the methodologies used in mine hydrogeological studies, showcased by selected studies on Indian mines.

In Italy, the debate about the reform process, that has involved the water sector for several years, cannot be considered concluded.

The key highlights of the book include an innovative rainfall classification methodology based on stormwater quality to support the planning and design of stormwater treatment systems.

"Study on Heterotrophic-Autotrophic Denitrification Permeable Reactive Barriers (HAD PRBs) for In Situ Groundwater Remediation" is an unmatched reference work on PRBs for groundwater in situ remediation.

The book provides also a review of weighting methods applied in various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods and also presents survey results on priority ranking of watershed management criteria undertaken by 30 undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

As cities develop, more land is converted into impervious surfaces, which do not allow water to infiltrate. There are techniques that can attenuate peak flow during rain events and reduce the amount of metals, nutrients, and bacteria that enter the urban water cycle.

The uncontrolled utilization of natural resources to supply to the water demands of the ever-growing population has brought about worldwide scarcity. Unregulated discharge of waste water into fresh water resources is also polluting the available water resources and making them non-utilizable.

This book describes the water sector as it is structured in Italy. The third part reports insights on water utilities performance to enquire the presence of economies by scope, scale and density in the Italian water sector, and to verify the presence of any differences in terms of efficiency and tariffs among public and private firms.

The main purpose of water quality monitoring may be seen as evaluating water quality conformity against water quality standards, especially for administrative purposes.

The increase in GHG gases in the atmosphere due to expansions in industrial and vehicular concentration is attributed to warming of the climate world wide. This Brief introduces a Vulnerability Index which will be directly proportional to the climatic impacts of the watersheds.