Evolving water science in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Abstract. This paper reviews the changing relation between human beings and water since the Industrial Revolution, a period that has been called the Anthropocene because of the unprecedented scale at which humans have altered the planet during this time. We show how the rapidly changing world urges us to continuously improve our understanding of the complex interactions between humans and the water system. The paper starts by demonstrating that hydrology and the science of managing water resources have played key roles in human and economic development throughout history; yet these roles have often been marginalised or obscured. Knowledge of hydrology and water resources engineering and management helped to transform the landscape, and thus also the very hydrology within catchments itself. It is only fairly recent that water experts have become conscious of such mechanisms, exemplified by several concepts that try to incorporate them -integrated water resources management, eco-hydrology, socio-hydrology. We have reached a stage at which a more systemic understanding of scale interdependencies can inform the sustainable governance of water systems, using new concepts like precipitation sheds, virtual water transfers, water footprints, and water value flow.

Streamflow recession patterns can help unravel the role of climate and humans in landscape co-evolution

“…diversions, dams and reservoirs, artificial drainage) or indirectly (e.g. deforestation, anthropogenic climate change) calling for an integrated socio-hydrological approach (Savenije et al, 2014). Sivapalan et al (2012) described three avenues through which this human role in the Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.…”

“…Answering these questions means facing the complexity and multitude of interactions between soil, vegetation, atmosphere, and humans. Therefore, several recent opinion papers in hydrology called for the use of "Darwinian" approaches that try to summarise the effects of co-evolution between soil, vegetation, atmosphere, and humans on the hydrological cycle into general emergent patterns, and use these emergent patterns to explain the origin of the observed variations (Harman and Troch, 2014;Sivapalan et al, 2011;Savenije et al, 2014;Schaefli et al, 2011;Troch et al, 2013bTroch et al, , 2015.…”

Cities and Water Security in the Anthropocene: Research Challenges and Opportunities for International Relations

“…However, the manifestations of the Anthropocene prove that 'nature talks back' when humans cross certain limits (Savenije, Hoekstra and van der Zaag 2014). Decreases in groundwater and lake levels, as well as the extinction of wetlands, reveal that many of the usual uses of water systems are unsustainable.…”

“…As we have seen, the complexity and unpredictability associated with the Anthropocene make this approach obsolete, and there is strong and increasing evidence that conventional water management approaches have failed to ensure water security. This recognition paved the way for integrated water resources management (IWRM), a concept officially adopted at the International Conference on Water and the Environment, held in Dublin in 1992 (Savenije, Hoekstra and van der Zaag 2014).…”

“…Nevertheless, empirical studies reveal that IWRM's benefits have been minimal due to the vagueness of the concept and its lack of focus on 'learning by doing' . Consequently, the concept of adaptive water management (AWM) was proposed to truly integrating uncertainty as a central element in water management (Savenije, Hoekstra and van der Zaag 2014). Assuming that people and ecosystems are uncertain and difficult to control, AWM uses feedbacks from nature to shape policies, placing systematic experimentation and learning in an incessant cycle (Schoeman, Allan and Finlayson 2014).…”