Freshwater resources are becoming increasingly limited in many parts of the world, and decision makers are demanding new tools for monitoring water availability and rates of consumption. Remotely sensed thermal-infrared imagery collected by Landsat provides estimates of land-surface temperature that allow mapping of evapotranspiration (ET) at the spatial scales at which water is being used. This paper explores the utility of moderate-resolution thermal satellite imagery in water resource management.

Managing drought in agriculture has taken on growing importance as population growth and environmental concerns place increasing pressures on agricultural water use. One alternative for agricultural water resource management in areas of recurrent drought is allocation through market mechanisms. While past research has aimed to explain why farmers are reluctant to participate in already established water markets, this research seeks to identify the appropriate market mechanism given farmers' preexisting attitudes toward water markets.

Up until the end of the 1980s the Peruvian public administration played a central role in irrigation systems throughout the country; this changed in 1989 when operational management of the systems was transferred to water users associations (WUAs). This sudden move required new management capacities for such organizations, demands that were not catered for at the time.

Developing farmers' institutional capacity to defend their water rights is central to sustaining irrigation farming in the UK. Increasing demand and competition for water and the introduction of new water regulations have led many farmers to re-evaluate the security of their water rights.

For the past 160 years, the prior appropriation system of the Western United States has adapted to changing water uses and shifting societal priorities. This paper argues that prior appropriation creates sufficient certainty to allow for economic development and facilitate water markets, yet is flexible enough to adapt to changing priorities and water supplies. Because it possesses both flexibility and certainty, it is a strong enough framework for the Western United States to weather the possible effects of climate change on water supply.

An attempt is made here to shed light on how water legislation could address the climate change challenge. Although climate change legislation provides a framework for the integration of climate change issues into government policies on several topics, it does not cover water resources as such. Therefore, water legislation must provide for such integration. The challenge is to find a balance between well-defined water rights, duties and administrative functions on the one hand and, on the other, the flexibility required to respond to the vagaries of a changing climate.

Knowledge of river gain from or loss to a hydraulically connected water table aquifer is crucial in issues of water rights and also when attempting to optimize conjunctive use of surface and ground waters. Typically in groundwater models this exchange flow is related to a difference in head between the river and some point in the aquifer, through a “coefficient.” This coefficient has been defined differently as well as the location for the head in the aquifer.

This paper examines the changing profile of water traders (both allocation and entitlement traders) in the Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District in Australia, and examines the efficiency of the water allocation and entitlement markets from 1998-99 to 2003-06. The results suggest that the profile of traders in the early and mature stages of the water allocation market differ greatly. In addition, the profile of allocation traders is significantly dissimilar from that of water entitlement traders at all stages of water market development.