Environmental Management of Agricultural Watersheds

Golubev, G.N. (1983). Environmental Management of Agricultural Watersheds. IIASA Collaborative Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: CP-83-S1

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Abstract

It is well known that agricultural activity has a considerable influence on hydrological processes such as run-off and its regime, erosion and sedimentation, transport of dissolved chemicals, etc. But the influence goes beyond hydrology. Water just plays the role of an agent or carrier in geoecosystems. That is why we have chosen the watershed as a natural territorial unit where the components are united by hydrological processes.

The policy usually adopted for normal agricultural development is intensification. A good deal of information is now available on various environmental consequences of such intensification, mostly of unfavorable character. Rectification of those consequences is sometimes costly and technically difficult, so that a decision to go ahead with it is made against economic or technical considerations. In many cases correction of one problem brings along new ones often related to other disciplines. To make a decision on appropriate actions, a trade-off is usually made weighing the pros and cons of the action. Hence, the management aim of maintaining environmental quality and a sustainable resource base is of a complex and multidisciplinary character which is of interest to an institute such as IIASA.

Experiences accumulated in member countries of IIASA and presented at this conference are of interest not only to those countries, but could be useful to the developing world as well.

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