2000 USCID international conference

Presented at the 2000 USCID international conference, Challenges facing irrigation and drainage in the new millennium on June 20-24 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references.Sponsored by U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage.Multicriteria strategic planning for rehabilitation of the Wind River Irrigation Project, Wyoming -- Environmental management plan for the Irrigation Improvement Project (IIP) - Tajan Subproject -- Organizational requisites of successful irrigation system rehabilitation: cases from Nepal -- Verification-based planning for modernizing irrigation systems -- Policy reforms for sustainable irrigation management in Indonesia -- Bench terracing - a cost effective alternative to traditional irrigation in the Philippines -- GIS-based management system for irrigation districts -- Capacity building for the practice of irrigated agriculture -- Planning of modern irrigation systems integrated with human settlement for enhanced reuse of water -- Drainage in the Aral Sea Basin: past and future -- Impacts and solutions to urbanization on agricultural water resources -- Improving subsurface drainage design and management to reduce salt loads from irrigation areas in southeastern Australia -- Evaluation and update of drainage water management options on the westside San Joaquin Valley, California -- Simulation studies on use of saline water for irrigation in a semi-arid environment -- Hydrodynamic modeling to optimize irrigation efficiency -- Planning to meet future water needs -- Tracing the history of the development and management of two irrigations systems in the Terai of Nepal -- Secondary water supply management for irrigation districts and canal companies -- Role of canal automation and farmer's participation in managing water scarcity: a case study from Orissa, India -- PIM: a reality in Asia? -- Private group irrigation projects in Manitoba: Central Manitoba Resource Management Ltd. - a case study -- Evaluation of dielectric soil moisture sensors for irrigation scheduling on farms -- Sensitivity of micro irrigation emitters to plugging using treated municipal wastewaters -- NCWCD irrigation scheduling program - converting to a web-based accessible program -- On-farm activities to promote irrigation scheduling - the South Kansas Irrigation Management Project

Irrigation and drainage in the new millennium

Presented at the 2000 USCID international conference, Challenges facing irrigation and drainage in the new millennium on June 20-24 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Irrigation scheduling has been promoted as management tool to minimize irrigation water application, however, few irrigators regularly followed any rigorous scheduling methodology. Kansas State University Research and Extension in conjunction with an irrigation association, Water PACK, began a long-term project to promote ET based irrigation scheduling and other management technology. Area irrigators serve as the focal point of the project and over time have been asked to assume responsibility of scheduling the project fields. A long-term commitment and on-farm activities such as variable water application tests and center pivot uniformity tests seems to have generated confidence and acceptance of ET-based irrigation scheduling

Irrigation and drainage in the new millennium

Presented at the 2000 USCID international conference, Challenges facing irrigation and drainage in the new millennium on June 20-24 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references.In 1998, eight irrigation districts in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas initiated efforts to develop GIS-based District Management Systems (DMS). This paper provides a description of GIS (geographical information system) as applied to irrigation districts, its potential for improving the day-to-day management of districts, and the progress and difficulties encountered by the 8 districts in GIS mapping and implementation. Examples of how districts are using GIS are given, along with the value and use of the DMS in a regional water planning project

A Comparison Between Shale Gas in China and Unconventional Fuel Development in the United States: Water, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development

China is believed to have the world\u27s largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, although several legal, regulatory, environmental, and investment-related issues will likely restrain its exploitation. China\u27s capacity to face these hurdles successfully and produce commercial shale gas will have a crucial impact on the regional gas market and on China’s energy mix, as Beijing strives to decrease reliance on imported oil and coal, and, at the same time, tries to meet growing energy demand and maintain a certain level of resource autonomy. The development of the unconventional natural gas extractive industry will also provide China with further negotiating power to obtain more advantageously priced gas. This article, which adopts a comparative perspective, underlines the trends taken from unconventional fuel development in the United States, emphasizing their potential application to China in light of recently signed production-sharing agreements between qualified foreign investors and China. The wide range of regulatory and enforcement problems in this matter are increased by an extremely limited liberalization of gas prices, lack of technological development, and barriers to market access curbing access to resource extraction for private investors. This article analyzes the legal tools that can play a role in shale gas development while assessing the new legal and fiscal policies that should be crafted or reinforced. It also examines the institutional settings’ fragmentation and conflicts, highlighting how processes and outcomes are indeed path dependent. Moreover, the possibilities of cooperation and coordination (including through U.S.-China common initiatives), and the role of transparency and disclosure of environmental data are assessed. These issues are exacerbated by concerns related to the risk of water pollution deriving from mismanaged drilling and fracturing, absence of adequate predictive evaluation regulatory instruments and industry standards: this entails consequences for social stability and environmental degradation which are inconsistent with the purposes of sustainable development

Sino-Tibetan Relations 1990-2000:the Internationalisation of the Tibetan Issue

Das Jahrzehnt zwischen 1900 und 2000, welches das Objekt dieser Dissertation ist, war reich an Ereignissen in den Chinesisch-Tibetischen Beziehungen. Das Dialog zwischen Peking und Dharamsala, welches in der frühen 1980er initiiert wurde, ist zusammengebrochen, China hat Wirtschaftsreformen und Infrastrukturprojekte gestartet, die für das Überleben des tibetischen Volkes fatal sein könnten, die Tibeter haben angefangen ihr politisches Anliegen zu internationalisieren und die Politik des Mittleren Weges wurde demokratisch von dem tibetischen Volk einstimmig akzeptiert. Es war ein Jahrzehnt von vielen hoffnungsvollen Anzeichen für das tibetische Volk – die Berliner Mauer ist gefallen, die Sowietunion ist zerfallen und der Kommunismus in Europa war besiegt, die chinesischen Studenten sind gegen ihre Regierung und für mehr Demokratie aufgestanden, der Straßburger Vorschlag des Dalai Lama hat eine weltweite Unterstützung erfahren und der Friedensnobelpreis wurde Dalai Lama verliehen. Für die Kommunistische Partei Chinas war es ein Jahrzehnt ernsten internen und internationalen Herausforderungen – ihr angeschlagenes Image zu aufzubessern und das Vertrauen des Volkes zurückzugewinnen. Andererseits bekam der tibetische Nationalkampf internationale Beachtung und Unterstützung. Immerhin, die chinesische Regierung hat nicht nur ihre Kontrolle über Tibet gestärkt, sondern es auch geschafft die internationale Kritik diesbezüglich zu vermeiden. Das Geduldspiel von Peking und seine unverändert harte tibetische Innenpolitik, sowie die “Wieder-Ausbildungskampagnen”, haben Dalai Lama dazu gezwungen auf den Aufruf für Unabhängigkeit zu verzichten und statt dessen für eine “reale Autonomie” zu plädieren. Dalai Lama und seine Exilregierung formulierten die Politik des Mittleren Weges, die von den Exiltibetern eindeutig unterstützt wurde. Sie erhielt auch einen großen Zuspruch von den westlichen Regierungen, den chinesischen Intellektuellen und den Befürwortern der Demokratie. Bis zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt konnte jedoch diese Politik die Regierung in Peking nicht überzeugen. Strategisch gesehen war das Jahrzehnt 1990-2000 eines der günstigsten für das tibetische Volk im Nationalkampf einen großen Schritt nach vorne zu machen und hat sich dadurch eine nähere Erforschung verdient. Diese Dissertation versucht die komplexen Faktoren zu analysieren, die den Chinesisch-Tibetischen Konflikt beeinflusst haben und die riskanten Politiken zu enthüllen – die Politiken des Bevölkerungstransfers und Unterdrückung der Glaubensfreiheit – welche von der chinesischen Regierung innerhalb des Tibetischen Autonomen Region implementiert wurden

A study with comparative references to selected foreign transboundary rivers.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.While it is widely predicted that climate change will cause a significant decline of water availability in diverse regions of the planet, it is also established that the same phenomenon will cause frequent and intense floods in many other regions of the globe, including the Congo River basin, in Central Africa. This basin, which houses the second-largest tropical rain forest in the world is under threat of seasonal floods due to climate change. Studies concerning the impact of climate change on the basin’s hydrology have revealed that the phenomenon will cause an increase of approximately 10 to 15 percent of the run-off of the basin, and a rise of about 11 to 17 percent of the Congo River’s discharge, by the year 2050. The Congo River is the main outlet of the Congo basin. It discharges approximately 45,000 cubic metres of waters per second in the Atlantic Ocean, of which one third are the waters from the Congo River’s transboundary tributaries. Eleven to seventeen percent in addition to what already exists suggests a higher likelihood of intense seasonal floods across the Congo River basin. The 1997 United Nations Convention on the non-navigational uses of international watercourses has required water cooperation across river basins in order to jointly adopt the appropriate measures including the laws, to address the predicted impacts of climate change. However, the consulted literature has given very little interest in this matter as far as the Congo River basin is concerned. Furthermore, no previous study has examined the legal implications thereof. This thesis has, therefore, tried to comprehend the implications that these climate change impacts on the hydrology of the Congo River basin will have on the laws that govern the Congo River and its transboundary tributaries. This thesis has at first assessed the legal framework that governs the Congo River and its transboundary tributaries against Cooley & Gleick’s criteria framework, which verifies the integration of the climate change dimension in transboundary water treaties. At a second stage, this thesis has undertaken a comparative analysis of the said regime with the flood management regime that is in place in the Rhine River basin. From the analysis undertaken in this thesis, it has transpired that the legal regime that governs the Congo River and its transboundary tributaries has not adequately integrated the climate change dimension. Furthermore, it is deprived of any flood management provision or mechanism, thus suggesting an alarming vulnerability to floods along the Congo River especially. Inspired by the Rhine flood management regime, and having elucidated the hydro politics at play across the Congo River basin, this thesis has formulated some critical recommendations that aim at equipping the basin with an adequate flood management legal regime

China and global climate change : proceedings of the conference held at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, 18-19 June 2009

The conference on China and Global Climate Change was held at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, from 18-19 June 2009. About 100 scholars from around the world participated in the conference. They served in various capacities, including as presenters, researchers, paper writers and/or discussants. The conference was jointly organized and sponsored by Lingnan University\u27s Centre for Asian Pacific Studies (CAPS) and its Environmental Studies Programme (ESP). The objective of the conference was to examine the problem of how to reconcile China\u27s growing greenhouse gas emissions with the Chinese government\u27s unwillingness (so far) to join binding international commitments to reduce those emissions. Since the start of international negotiations on climate change in the 1980s, the Chinese government has refused to be bound by commitments to limit its pollution of the atmosphere. This refusal is based on the historical responsibility of the world\u27s wealthy countries for past emissions and China\u27s status as a developing country. The then President Hu Jintao reaffirmed that China would not commit to mandatory emissions-reduction targets before the world\u27s wealthy countries take the lead in addressing global climate change. He has also called on affluent countries to pay for emissions limitations in China and other developing countries. Alongside these Chinese concerns about justice and historical responsibility is the new reality that China has become the largest national source of pollution causing climate change. Without China\u27s involvement, notably limitations in its future greenhouse gas emissions, international efforts to mitigate global warming substantially are unlikely to succeed. This comes against the backdrop of increasing concerns among atmospheric scientists that global warming is happening more quickly than predicted, that climate change will be more severe than anticipated, and that the poorest countries and people of the world will experience monumental suffering in coming decades as a consequence. Thus the conference aimed to assess how China\u27s longstanding concerns about international fairness and justice can be squared against the pressing need for an effective international regime that limits greenhouse gas emissions – including those from China.https://commons.ln.edu.hk/caps_book/1000/thumbnail.jp