Calls for papers

International Journal of Water

Special Issue on: "The Effectiveness and Reform of Water Resource Research and Management"

Editor: Professor A. K. Dragun, Griffith University, Australia

Water resources around the world are under profound stress. Chronic water shortages and profound environmental despoliation appear to becoming worse, despite extraordinary public expenditures to rectify matters. The scale of national spending on research and programs to better understand the ecology and hydrology of the stressed water systems has been huge as has been the effort to improve the technical efficiency of existing use. International cooperation and expenditure on these perspectives has also been consequential.

Unfortunately, in the setting of such circumstances as rapid urbanization and industrialization as well as climate change, it appears to be the case that the traditional approaches of research and management are not working.

The first part of the Special issue will be focused on testing the proposition that the general current approaches of water resources research and management are not working, while the second part will be directed to improving the current approach if that is seen to be desirable and possible, or alternatively to articulating approaches which might actually achieve an improvement in water resource management.

Given the diverse range of questions and perspectives on both Issues, it is anticipated that the skills of a range of disciplines will be relevant here and contributions are canvassed widely without any disciplinary preconceptions. Generally, a priority will be given to work with a theoretical or methodological focus rather than to general case studies.

The topics here could be broad and open ended, and potential contributors are asked to take the initiative with their analysis. The scope of contribution could be wide ranging from issues of defining the problems, appropriate research methodology, secondary research agendas, organizational priorities or political imperatives amongst others.

Again the scope and topic range could be quite wide, with the reasonable expectation that any new alternatives should be methodologically coherent and amenable to general application both nationally and internationally.

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (Conference papers may only be submitted if they were not originally copyrighted and if they have been completely re-written.)

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Deadline for submission of proposals/abstracts or prospective papers: 1 October, 2010

Deadline for submission of completed papers: 28 February, 2011