Asian river basins are undergoing rapid transformation. This volume
considers the implications of the environmental change-development nexus
for water management, river health and hazard awareness. As Biswas and
Tortajada (2011) have recently commented, water management in Asia will
likely change more in the next twenty years than in the last 2000 years.
Critical environmental trends include decreasing flows of water and
sediment due to dam construction and increased water extraction, land
use change (especially forest removal), encroachment and degradation of
floodplain and wetland environments, increased water demand and concerns
about water security, urban expansion and associated pollution of rivers
and contamination of groundwater reserves. These challenges are being
reframed by new approaches to water management which represent a
transition from engineering-dominated approaches towards integrated
water management, from technology transfer to adaptive technologies. The
volume comprises an introduction and five chapters. Brierley and Callum
reframe approaches to river repair within emerging theories of in
ecology and earth science which regard nature as a complex adaptive
system replete with inherent uncertainties. These ideas are mirrored in
the four case study chapters which deal with water governance in the
Mekong Basin (Hirsch); hybrid adoption of water resource technologies in
India (Barbanente et al.); determination of sediment dynamics in Java
Rijsdijk); and ecological conservation imperatives in the headwaters of
the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong rivers in western China (Li et al.).
