River basin planning as a strategy for rural development in Nigeria

This paper outlines the importance of multiple time step optimization (MTO) in river basin allocation. The principal novelty of the work presented here is to provide a methodology for how to use MTO solutions in river basin planning and real-time operation. Two approaches for using the MTO results were tested on Damodar River basin in India and are presented in the paper. Using the proposed approach, the model managed flood flows without exceeding the downstream full bank channel capacity in 35 years of available historical data, while at the same time increasing generated hydropower on average by 63% annually, and supplying an additional 350 million m3 to irrigation and industry compared to the historical levels. The results presented in this study were obtained using the new Web-based Basin Management (WEB.BM) water management model, the only water allocation model with full Linear Programming (LP) optimization capabilities available online free of charge.

Water Accounting Plus for Water Resources Reporting and River Basin Planning

Introduction: River Basin Plans are fundamental instruments of the National Water Resources Policy, designed to diagnose the water situation and formulate scenarios and guidelines for the sustainable management of water resources. In this context, water resources information systems play a crucial role by providing reliable data for planning and monitoring. However, the creation of water quality monitoring plans in river basins still lacks structured studies, especially in Brazil. This study conducts a bibliometric and systematic review of scientific literature on the subject, using databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, and Data Archiving and Networked Services. A total of 369 articles were analyzed and categorized into four levels of relevance to the topic. The results indicate that only 7% of the studies directly address the creation of monitoring plans, while another 7% highlight its need, underscoring the incipient nature of this debate. The thematic network analysis conducted using the VOSviewer software highlighted planning as a central element for the effectiveness of monitoring. Additionally, sampling point definition methodologies based on hydrography and analytical tools were identified. The study concludes that the structuring of monitoring plans should be integrated into environmental management and aligned with technical guidelines to ensure the sustainability of water resources and the population's water security. Objective: This study aims to conduct a comprehensive survey of relevant scientific literature through bibliometric and systematic analyses, applying strict inclusion and qualification criteria for studies. Theoretical Framework: Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative, statistical, and descriptive technique for analyzing scientific literature, enabling the identification of the most prolific and influential authors, interconnections between researchers and publications, as well as the mapping of emerging themes in a specific research field. Method: This research adopted bibliometric and network analysis techniques. Data collection was conducted through direct searches in Scopus and Web of Science, which offer national and international coverage. In addition to these, Data Archiving and Networked Services were used, which include technical publications from grey literature. Results and Discussion: The results revealed a growing academic interest in water monitoring, particularly in countries facing challenges related to water quality and availability. The review indicated that the structured discussion of monitoring plans for trends and multi-objectives is still in its infancy, representing only 7% of the articles analyzed. Furthermore, a heterogeneous distribution of publications was observed, with a higher concentration in the United States and a significant presence in Brazil, highlighting the topic's relevance in the national context. Research Implications: This research's practical and theoretical implications are discussed, providing insights into how the results can be applied or influence practices in the field of water monitoring. The studies analyzed reinforce the need for continuous review of monitoring strategies, considering environmental, economic, and climatic aspects, to mitigate the impacts of climate change on river basins. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature and theoretical frameworks for creating water monitoring plans for river basins. Its relevance and value are evidenced by its contribution to deepening the debate on water monitoring and highlighting gaps that can be explored in future research.

River basins are inherently complex systems comprising many interdependent components. Development activities undertaken without full consideration of the regional, social, environmental, and economic implications can and have had adverse repercussions. Management practices that respond to a single water use, a single population segment, or a single sector have caused inadvertent disruption to other uses, populations, and sectors. This review promotes a systems approach for developing and managing river basins. By including all critical components into a river basin plan, development and management objectives will be better met. To this end, we review integrated economic river basin models covering a wide range of issues, including water quantity and quality, environmental considerations, and conflicts at the sectoral, regional, and international levels. This synopsis characterizes the essential components of economic river basin modeling, provides guidelines for model specifications, and illustrates salient points with key examples from the literature.

In the postwar era, the preferred approach to harnessing rivers was through integrated river basin planning (IRBP), which required a holistic focus on the river basin for multipurpose development. While the river basin is taken for granted as the natural unit of development in the definitions of the IRBP concept, this article problematizes the river basin idea and reveals the politics behind what has been deemed natural (scientific), with a specific focus on Turkey’s experience with IRBP. It explores geopolitical and national motivations and challenges in the context of the scaling of the Euphrates-Tigris basin. By approaching IRBP as a process of scale-making, it draws from discussions of the politics of scale in the literature on political ecology, but also incorporates a historical dimension to these discussions with attention to the political and environmental histories of Southeastern Turkey, which became home to Turkey’s first and most extensive IRBP project, the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP).The article stretches the chronological boundaries of GAP to the decades prior to the 1970s, when the project was initiated, by analyzing archival materials, including the proceedings of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the archives of a daily newspaper, and the expert reports on GAP. The analysis highlights the politics of scale as a powerful constituent of the politics of technological development, and shows the significance of historical analysis to delineate the politics of river basin planning into different layers, including the level of geopolitics, territorial disputes, and international conflicts.

A new neural network‐based multiobjective optimization of water quality management for water pollution control and river basin planning is presented. Past research on water quality management problems has shown that traditional multiobjective decision making does not provide an adequate solution since it depends directly on the decision maker's (DM's) preferences, which may not be clearly defined. In order to overcome the DM's preferences problem this study uses a neural network algorithm to form a model for the solution of the multiobjective problems of water quality management in a river basin. Using the backpropagation algorithm of feedforward neural networks, a multiobjective programming model can simulate the DM's preferences, providing direct help to the analysts involved in real applications. Before describing the details of the multiobjective optimization problem, neural networks are proposed which can be used to predict the DM's preference structures. To demonstrate the procedures and the performance of the neural network‐based approach, the case of the Tou‐Chen River Basin in Taiwan is selected for analysis and discussion.

Evaluating participation in WFD river basin management in England and Wales: Processes, communities, outputs and outcomes

River-basin planning and management: The social life of a concept

There are relatively few studies of the values associated with tropical wetlands. Lack of such knowledge is a significant contributor to the failure of river basin planning to take account of existing economic activities such as indigenous irrigation, herding or fishing. Development of formal projects such as dams and large-scale irrigation schemes can have serious adverse effects on existing activities and economic values in wetlands. Data on these values are vital if development planning is to take them into account properly. This paper describes the nature and magnitude of agricultural production in the floodplain wetland of the Hadejia-Jama'are rivers in northern Nigeria, between Hadejia and Gashua. There is flood-rice and rainfed agriculture in the wet season, and in the dry season cropping by residual soil moisture, shadoof and (expanding rapidly through the 1980s) small petrol pumps. Most of this production is dependent on the annual flood. This has been reduced in magnitude by drought, and by dam construction and water abstraction for irrigation upstream in Kano State. The gross value of agricultural production is large, somewhere between 250 and 850 million Naira (1989 prices). The economic importance of the floodplain is placed in the context of the performance of the costly formal large-scale irrigation schemes upstream which have been favoured by the river basin planning process.

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) assumes coherence between cognate aspects of water governance at the river basin scale, for example water quality, energy production and agriculture objectives. But critics argue that IWRM is often less ‘integrated’ in practice, raising concerns over inter-sectoral coherence between implementing institutions. One increasingly significant aspect of IWRM is adaptation to climate change-related risks, including threats from flooding, which are particularly salient in England. Although multiple institutional mechanisms exist for flood risk management (FRM), their coherence remains a critical question for national adaptation. This paper therefore (1) maps the multi-level institutional frameworks determining both IWRM and FRM in England; (2) examines their interaction via various inter-institutional coordinating mechanisms; and (3) assesses the degree of coherence. The analysis suggests that cognate EU strategic objectives for flood risk assessment demonstrate relatively high vertical and horizontal coherence with river basin planning. However, there is less coherence with flood risk requirements for land-use planning and national flood protection objectives. Overall, this complex governance arrangement actually demonstrates de-coherence over time due to ongoing institutional fragmentation. Recommendations for increasing IWRM coherence in England or re-coherence based on greater spatial planning and coordination of water-use and land-use strategies are proposed.

Book reviewed in this article:Rangeland Hydrology, Farrel A. Branson, Gerald F. Gifford, Kenneth G. Renard, and Richard F. Hadley.Reclaiming the American West: A Historiography and Guide, Lawrence B. Lee.Natural Systems for Water Pollution Control, Ray Dinges.Quality of Groundwater, Proceedings of an International Symposium, Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands, 23‐27 March 1981, W. van Duijvenbooden, P. Glasbergen, and H. van Lelyveld (Editors).Soil physics, T. J. Marshall and J. W. Holmes.Hydrology far Engineers (3rd Edition), Ray K. Linsley, Jr., Max A. Kohler, and Joseph L. H. Paulhus.Energy Development in the Southwest: Problems of Water, Fish and Wildlife in the Upper Colorado River Basin, W. O. Spofford, Jr., A. L. Parker, and A. V. Kneese (Editors).River Basin planning, Theory and Practice, Suranjit K. Saha and Christopher J. Barrow (Editors).Groundwater in Hawai'i — A Century of Progress, Faith N. Fujimura and Williamson B. C. Chang (Editors).Coastal Upwelling, Coastal and Estuarine Sciences Series 1, Francis A. Richards (Editor).

Simulation models have proved extremely useful as an aid to river basin planning. All suffer a common difficulty, however, since the analyst himself must formulate the physical design to be studied in each computer run. If the basin is large and offers a variety of development opportunities, the number of alternative system plans from which he must choose can be extremely large. This paper reports on an investigation of the use of analytical optimization models to ‘screen’ the set of possible plans and to select a small number worthy of simulation analysis. The Delaware River basin being used as an example, deterministic and stochastic optimizing models have been developed and applied to both static and dynamic (multiperiod) planning problems. The resulting designs have been analyzed by using a large‐scale digital simulation model of the basin so that the ability of the screening models to identify high‐valued alternatives can be evaluated. In this context the results indicate considerable promise for the combined use of optimization and simulation models.

This chapter provides ten overarching conclusions with respect to a present assessment of water policy and management, and summarizes key recommendations for improvement. These conclusions include combining and coordinating fragmented federal water agencies and programs; developing a national strategy for water resources; reviving river basin commissions and requiring river basin planning on rivers shared by two or more states; tasking a national water commission or council with guiding river basin plans and reviewing water-related budgets and priorities; and supporting an improved understanding of water supply, use, and flows.

Multicriterion decision making in river basin planning and development

River Basin Plan