engleski

Challenges in transboundary karst water resources management

The aim of water management is to satisfy water demands. This represents simple and pleasant task when the quantity and quality of the available water resources are satisfactory. As we are witnesses of and active participation in a global water crisis one of the critical issues of the 21st century will undoubtedly be the sustainable management of international water bodies. Sustainable management and development is an umbrella concept, which until now has not been put into practice enough efficiently. It has many dimensions with various definitions, depending on the professional background of the investigator. To obtain a harmonious, reliable and sustainable development, it is necessary to take the complex, interactive, technical, social, economic, environmental and cultural aspects of water resources management into account in decision-making. In the case of the transboundary karst water resources management it is especially hard and dubious task. First of all sustainable development needs to response to global pressure on karst water resources. It should safeguard quantity and quality of vulnerable karst water resources with its valuable habitats and endangered, very often endemic, surface and especially underground species. The necessity of identifying a karst water system as a whole is becoming more significant, due to fact that karst terrains have been more densely populated recently which has resulted in greater demands for water. The goal of the paper is to point out specific characteristics of karst water circulation, which make a lot of difficulties in karst water resources management, and at the same time represent the main and real reason for possible conflict when they are internationally shared. The karst system shows extreme heterogeneity and variability of geologic, morphologic, hydrogeologic, hydrologic, hydraulic, ecological and other parameters in time and space. Such a complex system needs interdisciplinary approach. It is highly important to understand the interaction of groundwater and surface water in karst and their influence on surface and underground biological processes.

transboundary karst water resources management

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