New Oxford book on global challenges in water

Rapid climate and environmental change, and a growing global population make sustainable water management a “defining challenge for the twenty-first century”.

A new book published last month draws together voices from Oxford’s Water Science, Policy and Management programme – a world-leading MSc course – with the aim of advancing scientific understandings, and identifying policy priorities, challenges and opportunities for water management, now and into the future.

Water Science, Policy and Management: A Global Challenge, published by Wiley-Blackwell, marks 15 years of Oxford University’s flagship water MSc.  Edited and written by some of the leading academics writing alongside course alumni now working in academia, government, NGOs, commerce and industry; the volume forms an important part of Oxford’s agenda-setting contribution to the field.

Founded in 2004, Oxford’s Water Science, Policy and Management MSc is the only interdisciplinary water master’s course, bridging social and natural sciences with cross-cutting themes in economics, climate and catchment processes, governance, water quality, water and health, water policy and management. https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/study/graduate/wspm/index.html

The book presents critical views on the monitoring and modelling of hydrological processes; the rural water policy in Africa and Asia; the political economy of wastewater in Europe; drought policy management and water allocation. It also examines the financing of water infrastructure; the value of wastewater; water resource planning; sustainable urban water supply and the human right to water.

You can watch Lord Patten, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and author of the book’s foreword (pictured above), Dr. Claudia Sadoff, Director-General International Water Management Institute (pictured center below), and WSPM alumni give talks as part of a reception attended by over 120 alumni in the University Museum.  |  Watch now

Find the book here: Dadson, S.J., Garrick, D.E, Penning-Rowsell, E.C., Hall, J.W., Hope, R. and Hughes, J. (eds.) (2019) Water Science, Policy and Management: A Global Challenge, Wiley-Blackwell, 400pp. ISBN: 978-1-119-52060-3