Читать книгу Climate Impacts on Sustainable Natural Resource Management - Группа авторов - Страница 33

Water is an essential natural resource for human existence. Over the years freshwater availability for human utilization has been declining, whereas the growing population demand increases. Therefore, there is a pressing need to monitor this vital resource and better understand its sustainable use approach. Water, soil, and vegetation are vital natural resources and hence should be managed effectively and simultaneously. A watershed is the smallest planning unit that efficiently represents a continuum of these three resources. This knowledge can help develop effective water management strategies, and it can be of crucial importance for regions with limited water availability.

GIS renders the technology for delineating land use pattern, land resource assessment, irrigation water management, flood management, and monitoring the environmental impact of watershed projects. It is also an excellent tool for delineating hydro‐morphological units in problematic areas for selecting suitable sites for water harvesting structures. Geospatial techniques have emerged as indispensable tools for mapping and planning natural resources (Mahajan and Panwar 2005; Vittala et al. 2008; Bryan et al. 2011; Burkhard et al. 2012). These techniques play a significant role in various fields of watershed aspects, such as estimating evapotranspiration (ET) (Bashir et al. 2008; Elhag et al. 2011), runoff modeling (Shrivastava et al. 2004; López‐Vicente et al. 2013), soil erosion (Vemu and Pinnamaneni 2011; Esteves et al. 2012), flood‐management (Park and Hur 2012; Steinfeld and Kingsford 2013), and irrigation management (Georgoussis et al. 2009; Saidi et al. 2009). Figures 2.3 and 2.4 show flow diagrams for geospatial technology's role in assessing groundwater potential and its role in watershed prioritization, respectively.

Figure 2.3 Representation of multiple spatial layers that can be developed with the assistance of geospatial technology to assess groundwater potential. Based on Georgoussis et al. (2009).