Watersheds and Rehabilitations Measures - A Review
Year: 2014
Type: review
Abstract: Freshwater scarcity remains a problem for millions of people around the world, especially in arid and semiarid regions. Watersheds provide human societies with many goods and services such as clean water, conservation of biodiversity, erosion control and carbon sequestration. Unlike other resources such as minerals and timber, the value of these goods and services is seldom expressed in monetary terms. Many countries have laws regulating access to and use of watershed resources however, these are often inefficient and difficult to implement. This paper hence reconnoitres sustainable watershed management and urges relevant institutions such as Environmental Protection Agencies, Water Research Institutes and Governmental Agencies of the need for a participatory integrated approach which includes the various physical, vegetative and human components within watersheds. It is concluded therefore that the fundamental social problem of watershed management is that it often distributes benefits and costs unevenly, making it a likely source of conflict between residents upstream and downstream. Watershed management practices should thus, be implemented in a manner that solves soil and water degradation problems but at the same time be socially and politically acceptable and economically feasible. The challenge here is to internalize the costs and benefits in such a way that all the stakeholders are part of a win-win scenario.
Source: Resources and Environment
Author: Leslie Mawuli Aglanu
Language: English
Subfield: Water Science and Technology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2336052079