Water-related issues are gaining importance at both national and global level. Water resources are becoming insufficient in meeting the rising needs. As resources are distributed unevenly throughout the world, supply and demand correspondence is difficult to meet. The analysis of water related issues should be addressed within a comprehensive framework. CGE models offer this possibility. This study aims to construct a CGE model for Turkey which includes water as a factor of production. It relates water issues with another troublesome debate that is important for Turkey: trade liberalization in agriculture. Turkey as a member of WTO and a candidate country for the EU has to consider the effects of a further liberalization in agriculture on its economy. In this study a trade liberalization scenario and a water-policy scenario have been discussed. Additional simulations are conducted in the case of a productivity increase in agriculture. Results show that, trade liberalization in agriculture leads to an increase in GDP and income levels, but had a negative impact on the trade balance in agricultural products. Applying a &ldquo / selective water tax&rdquo / will result in a decrease in production and consumption in water-intensive sectors, as well as in the private income. For the first simulation, productivity increase in agriculture leads to a further increase in both GDP level and incomes, and it compensates the trade distortions resulting from the tariff reduction. In water simulation, private income increases with productivity increase and depletion in production and consumption of agricultural products reversed. Moreover, the net exports in agriculture improve significantly.

<p> The Kingdom of Jordan is one of the world's most water poor countries suffering from physical water scarcity, a growing population, regional instability, poor water infrastructure, inefficient water sector management and high water misuse. Through conducting a content analysis of 73 USAID reports, focusing on water demand management, this paper aims to understand how water demand is managed in the Kingdom, in addition to understanding the role of international aid in transforming Jordan's water sector. A greater understanding of the crisis and actions taken to mitigate the impacts were revealed by examining specific water polices and laws, the role of government structures and water sectors, and implemented projects. It was found that Jordan has taken significant efforts to sustainably manage water resources and to address growing water demand. Reallocating water among various sectors, reducing non-revenue water, and decentralizing water provision are key priorities outlined in the Kingdom's water strategy.</p>

Currently, the US Environmental Protection Agency primarily regulates the discharge of dissolved nitrogen and phosphorous from wastewater treatment plants in the United States. A recent study has shown that the treated effluent of many plants contains concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide well above the expected theoretical equilibrium concentration of 0.6 mg/L, indicating that carbon dioxide may have been overlooked as a possible pollutant in receiving waters. For this reason, it is necessary to examine the possible presence of a discharge plume containing high levels of dissolved CO2 downstream from the outfall of a major wastewater treatment plant in Tampa, Florida. To examine this possibility, discharge data at the Howard F. Curren Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant was collected over a two-week period and fed into the UM3 submerged discharge model to simulate discharge conditions at peak ebb tide. In all, five separate runs of the model were performed and compared to examine plume rise, spreading rate, average dissolved CO2 concentration, and plume path. The model predicts that, for this scenario, the plume rises fairly rapidly and is also quickly diluted to near-ambient concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide within a short distance of being discharged. While this would seem to indicate that the effects of Howard F. Curren on Tampa Bay, in terms of dissolved CO2, are negligible major limitations of the UM3 model make it difficult to say this with a great deal of certainty.

The City of Tampa, Florida has instituted water restrictions over the past decade that have been primarily aimed at mitigating non-essential usage of water resources by limiting domestic lawn irrigation. The mandatory restrictions are enforced by the issuance of citations to violators, which is intended to promote compliance and deter from subsequent violations. This thesis provides a thorough investigation of historical water restriction with relation to compliance in order to determine which factors might be related to high rates of water usage within key Tampa communities. The objectives are to: (1) develop a GIS data set that can be used to quantitatively map and analyze domestic water usage at the parcel level; (2) examine the relationships between domestic water usage and key environmental and recreational factors, such as rainfall, seasonality, and usage of swimming pools; and (3) map the enforcement of residential lawn irrigation policy non-compliance to determine spatial relationships within the communities and test the effectiveness of current enforcement practices. The key factor that provided the most significant relationship to water usage within the communities was the amount of average monthly rainfall, with each community's water consumption having a significant negative correlation with precipitation. Water usage increased in each examined community after transitioning to more stringent water usage restrictions, with cited restriction violators increasing usage to a greater magnitude than their uncited counterparts. This may primarily be attributed to contradictions between local policy and community binding directives.

Water has cultural and spiritual values to indigenous people. These beliefs expose them to unsafe water sources and make them vulnerable to waterborne diseases. This background is not taken into account when countries write their water legislations, therefor imposing a management of water not readily accepted by them. The Embera group is one of the indigenous groups from the Republic of Panama, who have strong water beliefs. They live along the shore of rivers in houses built on high stilts away from urban areas. The purpose of this cross-sectional community based study is to describe through a survey the relation between the water beliefs of Embera communities living inside the Chagres National Park and the health of women and children. A house to house visit was performed in two of the five Embera communities that reside inside the Chagres National Park to enroll them and complete the survey. Sixteen Embera households with 71 family members agreed to participate. Results showed that 18.5% were children under 5 years of age and 14.1% their corresponding mothers. One hundred percent of the households rely on rural aqueduct as their source of water, with no treatment performed to this water. Women that completed elementary school or had higher education level accounted for 53.4%. Analysis of frequency of more than three diarrheal episodes in children under 5 years of age with mother's education level and months of breastfeeding had no statistical significance (X2 of 1.935, p-value of >0.05; X2 of 0.258, p-value of >0.05). When the frequency of diarrheal episodes in women and their education level was analyzed a statistically significant association was found (X2 of 6.429, p-value of 0.011). Five (38.5%) out of 13 children under 5 years of age in these communities had complete immunization calendar for their ages, but 10 (76.9%) have completed immunization for Rotavirus. No deaths due to diarrhea were reported in any member of the household. Marginalization in this type of communities is frequent since they settle in vast areas far from access to safe roads, safe water, basic sanitation and health services. A similar study can be applied to the 5 communities living in the area to have a clear view of their water beliefs, diseases and needs in order to concentrate efforts to close any gaps.

Estimating the quantity of water that reaches the water table following an infiltration event is vital for modeling and management of water resources. Estimating the time scale of groundwater recharge after a rainfall event is difficult because of the dependence on nonlinear soil characteristics and variability in antecedent conditions. Modeling the flow of water through the variably saturated zone is computationally intensive since it requires simulation of Richards' equation, a nonlinear partial differential equation without a closed-form analytical solution, with parametric relationships that are difficult to approximate. Hence, regional scale coupled (surface water - groundwater) hydrological models make simplistic assumptions about the quantity and timing of recharge following infiltration. For simplicity, such models assume the quantity of recharge to be a fraction of the total rainfall and the time to recharge the saturated groundwater is scaled proportionally to the depth to water table, in lieu of simulating computationally intensive flow in the variably saturated zone. In integrated or coupled (surface water - groundwater) regional scale hydrological models, better representation of the timing and quantity of groundwater recharge is required and important for water resources management. This dissertation presents a practical groundwater recharge estimation method and relationships that predict the timing and volume accumulation of groundwater recharge to moderate to deep water table settings. This study combines theoretical, empirical, and simulation techniques to develop a relatively simple model to estimate the propagation of the soil moisture wetting front through variably saturated soil. This model estimates the time scale and progression of recharge following infiltration for a specified depth to water table, saturated hydraulic conductivity and equilibrium moisture condition. High-resolution soil moisture data from a set of experiments conducted in a laboratory soil column were used to calibrate the HYDRUS-1D model. The calibrated model was used to analyze the time scale of recharge by varying soil hydraulic properties and simulating the application of rainfall pulses of varying volume and intensities. Modeling results were used to develop an equation that relates the non-dimensional travel time of the wetting front to excess moisture moisture content above equilibrium. This research indicates that for a soil with a known retention curve, the wetting front arrival time at a given depth can be described by a power law, where the power is a function of the saturated hydraulic conductivity. This equation relates the non-dimensional travel time of the wetting front to excess moisture content above the equilibrium moisture content. Since the equilibrium moisture content is dependent on the water retention curve, the powers in the equation governing the timing of recharge depend on the saturated hydraulic conductivity for a large variation in water retention curve. Also, the power law relates recharge (normalized by applied pulse volume) to time (normalized by the time of arrival of wetting front at that depth). The resulting equations predicted the model simulated normalized (relative) recharge with root mean square errors of less than 14 percent for the tested cases.

<p> This dissertation presents a comprehensive framework to analyze municipal water supply reforms in developing countries by adapting the institutional analysis and development framework (IAD) to this sector. It does so by providing a detailed description of all the meaningful components of the IAD framework that apply to municipal water reforms and also provides a structure to evaluate these reforms. It then applies the adapted framework to the municipal water reforms in Jakarta, Indonesia to get a fresh perspective on the situation there. </p><p> The application of the framework to Jakarta yields a number of findings, not widely discussed in the literature. For instance it becomes clear that the success of a system involving a diverse set of institutions requires a thorough understanding of the interactions between the different actors, not just a study of the actors themselves. Also, a variety of factors exogenous to the players&mdash;like biophysical factors, or the characteristics of the community or rules on the ground&mdash;often play crucial roles. These need to be considered while shaping policy. A number of such lessons have been presented in this dissertation. </p><p> Finally, this dissertation draws insights from this adaptation to Jakarta which can provide lessons to similar cases in the developing world.</p>

Heavy metal pollutants enter watersheds because of deforestation, industrialization, and farming practices. Much research has been done on the Rio Tarcoles watershed, which includes Costa Rica’s capital city of San Jose, but much less has been performed on the Rio Parrita watershed, which lies adjacently South of the Tarcoles. This study aimed to examine the presence of metal pollutants in the Rio Parrita watershed and its possible implications on the wildlife that rely on it. Water and sediment samples were collected during the rainy season at the mouth of the Rio Tarcoles (high pollution control), Quebrada Terciopelo (low pollution control), and Rio Parrita watersheds and analyzed using ICP-MS to determine the concentrations of metallic elements along with the water’s pH and total dissolved solids (TDS). Statistical tests were used to analyze the differences in the availability of select metals in water and sediments that were frequently examined in relevant literature (Al, Fe, U, Cd, Tl, V, Ni, Cr). GIS maps were examined to delineate the watersheds and examine population densities in the Rio Parrita and Rio Tarcoles watersheds. Rio Parrita had significantly greater concentrations of Ni and Cr than either control river (p

Streamside management zones (SMZs) have become important management techniques to prevent the introduction of sediment to stream networks. This study examined the current Kentucky best management practice (BMP) guidelines for SMZs by outfitting mobile forest harvest equipment with global positioning system (GPS) receivers, enabling modeling of equipment traffic and spatial analysis of stream sediment delivery. Three SMZ configurations were implemented during commercial timber harvest, along with four different techniques of crossing ephemeral channels, in order to determine where and why sediment was introduced to the stream network. Results indicate that increasing the SMZ buffer width leads to decreased sediment delivery, and that requiring an SMZ buffer with some canopy retention on ephemeral channels will lead to improvements in stream water quality. Care should be taken in the placement and construction of water control measures for skid trail retirement, and improved stream channel crossings such as bridges and pipe culverts should be required to improve water quality over unimproved fords. A northeasterly aspect of harvested areas was shown to be related to increased sediment delivery to streams, while surface roughness downslope from the skid trail system was shown to decrease sediment delivery.

There is no single resource so essential to sustaining life and livelihoods than water (UNDP, 2005). Water is furthermore a strategic resource that not only gives life, but is also a catalyst for development; therefore water has to and must be at the centre of all development plans (Buyelwa, 2009). Water can be the limiting factor for economic growth, upliftment and social development due to its scarcity and uneven distribution. Strategic spatial interface and relationship with water resource planning and management is fundamental to development and realisation of spatial potential. Strategic spatial planning has many components of which the Spatial Development Framework forms the key regulation to guide development and inform investment opportunities. The goal of this study is to determine the degree to which water resource management and planning is incorporated in Spatial Development Frameworks in context of strategic spatial planning. Concurrently international strategic spatial planning procedures and water resource management principles are investigated to correlate the local situation with international trends. A Goal Achievement Matrix (GAM) with ten assessment principles is developed as a tool for evaluation of strategic spatial planning and water resource management documents in terms of the local municipal level. This GAM may be used and implemented as a comparative evaluation tool to compare the degree of integration and implementation of water resource management and strategic spatial planning of local municipal authorities internationally. The percentage score as achieved in evaluation of the GAM indicates the degree of integration of water resource management and planning with strategic spatial planning. The cumulative result of the GAM scored 68% which can be used as a degree of comparison in future studies with other local municipalities, even on an international level. Measured in terms of the different authority levels the local level performed the worst with a 50% GAM score whilst the national level has a high GAM score of 86%. The low local level score indicates that exceptional legislation and policies on national level are not sufficient to eradicate poverty, provide water for all and provide for long-term sustainability if the implementation at local level falters. The low local level score may also be attributed to a lack of institutional capacity and lack of appropriate skills. It is concluded that Spatial Development Frameworks (as a component of strategic spatial planning) and water resource management and planning on a local level are not effectively integrated and it is recommended that water resources and planned future development must be effectively managed and integrated in order to ensure sustainable communities at local level. As a planning recommendation, the Guidelines for the Development of Spatial Development Frameworks developed by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform must be extended to incorporate the integrative approach between strategic spatial planning and water resource management as a fundamental aspect. The effective integration of water resource management and planning in strategic spatial planning is key to sustainable, equitable and viable communities. / Thesis (MArt et Scien (Urban and Regional Planning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.