International Review for Environmental Strategies (IRES)

This chapter discusses how and why environmental policies have changed over time, both internationally and in the developing world. It provides an overview of policy diffusion and policy integration. The main policy paradigms and principles, policy instruments, selection criteria and methods of making environmental policy choices, and factors...

The environmental policies in place today across the globe have been arrived at through a process of evolution, adoption, and adaptation. This paper outlines how environmental policies have evolved over time, including how their scope has broadened from looking at primarily industrial pollution to addressing a host of other environmental problems...

This edition featuring on best practices on environmental policy is based on the outcomes of the Research on Innovative and Strategic Policy Options I (RISPO I) conducted by IGES during FY2001-2004 under the framework of the Asia-Pacific Environmental Innovation Strategy Project (APEIS) which involves various research institutes related to...

Sustainable water resources management emphasizes whole-system solutions to meet the water needs of present and future generations reliably and equitably. To increase the reliability of water supply, the artificial recharge of groundwater basins is becoming increasingly important where conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater resources is...

Economic growth has produced great benefits for China, but it has also given rise to mounting environmental problems that threaten the country's sustainable development. Managing groundwater resources effectively is crucial because of the integral role of water in daily life, the economy, and the environment. The situation of water scarcity in...

A huge volume of groundwater was being pumped out for factories and to serve a growing population when ground subsidence was first detected in Tokyo in the years after 1910. Over the ensuing decades the water table dropped, falling to as low as 58 meters below sea level in 1965. The volume pumped out continued to grow until 1970, when it peaked at...

As a rapidly developing metropolitan region, the Bandung Basin is experiencing growing problems with environmental degradation, one of which concerns groundwater, where there is an imbalance between discharge (withdrawal by utilities, households, and industry) and recharge in the basin's water catchment areas. One of the main causes is the ongoing...

The state of global water resources and the environment is rapidly deteriorating despite international conservation efforts. The situation in the Asian monsoon region and regions in Africa, in particular, has become serious. Many past measures to conserve water resources have been ineffective because of weak governance and lack of capacity to...

The United Nations designated 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action "Water for Life." In April 2005, its Comission on Sustainable Development identified water as one of its three important issues. On the World Environment Day of June 2005, the UN secretary general said that by 2030, more than 60 percent of the world's polulation will...

Thailand completed its Eighth National Economic and Social Development Plan at the end of 2001. Important changes in natural resource management and environmental protection were made during the five-years of this National Plan. The Ninth National Economic and Social Development Plan carries forward many of these crucial efforts regarding natural...