Book Description:
Water resources are defined as sources of water that are useful or potentially useful to humans. They are important because they are needed for life to exist. Many uses of water include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental activities. Virtually all of these human uses require fresh water. Only 2.7% of water on the Earth is fresh water, and over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps, leaving only 0.007% available for human use. Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of clean, fresh water is steadily decreasing. Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts of the world, and as world population continues to rise at an unprecedented rate, many more areas are expected to experience this imbalance in the near future. The framework for allocating water resources to water users (where such a framework exists) is known as water rights. This new book presents the latest leading-edge research in the field.

Table of Contents:
Preface

Expert Commentaries

Emerging Contaminants: Novel Trends on Aquatic Environment Contamination (Pharmaceutical Chiral Compounds in Aquatic Environment)
(Juliana Cristina Barreiro, Marcela Cristina de Moraes, Quezia Bezerra Cass, Department de Quimica, UFSCar, Brazil) pp. 3-14

Discussion on the Uncertainties in Hydrological Modeling
(Chia-Ling Chang, Department of Environmental Resources Management, Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Taiwan) pp. 15-19

Short Communication

Hydrodynamic and Mass Transfer in Wiped Film Evaporator
(S. Zeboudj, R. Derriche, Ecole Nationale Polytechnique, El-Harrach, Alger, Algerie, P. Bourseau, Laboratoire d' Etudes Thermiques, Energetique et Environnement, University de Bretagne-Sud, France) pp. 23-38

Research and Review Studies

1. Multifractals in River and Channel Networks Geometry
(De Bartolo S., Gaudio R., Primavera L., Veltri M., Univ. della Calabria, Dipartimento di Difesa del Suolo "V. Marone", Rende, Italy) pp. 41-102

2. Mercury Behavior in the Water Column of an Impacted Coastal Lagoon: Ria de Aveiro (Portugal) as a Case Study
(Elsa C.D. Ramalhosa, CIMO - Centro de Investigacao de Montanha, Instituto Politecnico de Braganca, Escola Superior Agraria de Braganca, Portugal, Maria Eduarda Pereira, CESAM and Department of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, Portugal and Armando C. Duarte) pp. 103-148

3. Objectivity and Confidence in Ecological Assessments of Rivers and Lakes
(Ian Dodkins, Brian Rippey, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland) pp. 149-183

4. Recent Tendencies in the Synthesis of Pillared Clays for Phenol Oxidation
(N. Sanabria, R. Molina, S. Moreno, Estado Solido y Catalisis Ambiental, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia) pp. 85-209

5. Contamination of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Water Systems
(Kazuichi Hayakawa, Van Dieu Anh, Takuya Kawanishi, School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University, Japan) pp. 211-235

6. Resolving Meniscus Movement within Rough Confining Surfaces via the Level Set Method
(Masa Prodanovic, Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, Steven L. Bryant, Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences and Petroleum, University of Texas at Austin, Texas) pp. 237-261

7. Distributed Hydrologic Modeling
(Zhongbo Yu, Yong Huang, Xing Chen, Dept. of Geoscience, Univ. of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai Univ., Nanjing, China) pp. 263-280

8. Vertical Hydraulic Conductivity of Highly Permeable Alluvial Aquifers
(Xunhong Chen, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebrska) pp. 281-295

9. Application of the "Natural Flow Regime" Concept to the Development of A Comprehensive Streamflow Analysis Approach. Example of Annual Maximum Spring Flood in Southern Quebec
(Ali A. Assani, Simon Tardif, Francis Lajoie, Laboratoire D'Hydro-Climatologie et de Geomorphologie Fluviale, University du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres, Canada) pp. 297-321

Index pp.323-342