Sustainable water resources development: Some personal thoughts

Biswas, Asit K.

doi:10.1080/07900629408722616

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…One is tempted to replace 'conservation' with 'sustainability': the situation would then be not much different! The conceptual and operational problems associated with sustainable water development have been discussed in detail elsewhere (Biswas, 1994), and hence these will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that there are some major fundamental problems which need to be resolved before water developments can be made inherently 'sustainable', no matter how sustainability is defined.…”

Section: Definition Of Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because there has been no feedback between the predictions and the actual occurrences of the impacts, methods that may not be reliable continue to be used, and thus the errors are perpetuated regularly. Accordingly, the overall benefits of using the existing methodologies to predict and manage the environmental impacts of irrigation projects in the Asian countries have been somewhat limited (Biswas, 1994).…”

Section: Environmental Impact Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Considerations for sustainable irrigation development in Asia

Biswas¹

1994

International Journal of Water Resources Development

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The Asian population is expected to increase from 3103 million in 1990 to 5811 million in 2050 and to 6817 million in 2150. Such rises will invariably augment demands for all water uses. Water availability is unlikely to increase to accommodate all the expected demand growth. This will escalate the conflict between various water uses. Irrigation, which is now the most significant user of water, is likely to be the main loser. Its percentage share of total water used will decline steadily in the future. This will mean that the irrigation sector will have to do more with less water by increasing its efficiency significantly. The Asian countries will also have to take a balanced approach between irrigation development and environmental protection.

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Section: Definition Of Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental Impact Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Considerations for sustainable irrigation development in Asia

Biswas¹

1994

International Journal of Water Resources Development

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“…These reflect some important concepts of sustainability in water resources planning, such as demand management, supply reliability and flexibility, negative impact control, technology adaptation, financial feasibility, and economic efficiency. While these broad guidelines provide assistance and guidance to planners and decision makers, they have not been translated into operational concepts that can be applied to the region‐specific design, operation, and maintenance of water resources systems [ Biswas , 1994]. Also, since most of the guidelines address qualitative aspects of the problem, they must be transformed into quantitative plans of action that provide precise guidance for making decisions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework for sustainability analysis in water resources management and application to the Syr Darya Basin

Cai

McKinney

Lasdon

2002

Water Resources Research

140

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[1] Sustainable water management in irrigation-dominated river basins attempts to ensure a long-term, stable, and flexible water supply to meet crop water demands, as well as growing municipal and industrial water demands, while mitigating negative environmental consequences. To achieve this delicate balance, new models are needed which can use indicators of sustainability to guide the decision-making process. This paper presents a new long-term modeling framework which uses quantified sustainability criteria in a longterm optimization model of a basin, ensuring risk minimization in water supply, environmental conservation, equity in water allocation, and economic efficiency in water infrastructure development. ''Current'' and ''future'' water supply and demand are combined into a coherent system which takes account of the cumulative effects of shortterm water use decisions and deals with the tradeoffs between the benefits of current and future generations. The modeling framework is demonstrated with an application to the Syr Darya River Basin of central Asia. Model results show the effectiveness of this tool for policy analysis in the context of the river basin.

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