Human-driven biosphere changes demand new consideration of water resources as part of global sustainability. This book focuses on building socio-ecological resilience and sustaining ecosystem services in the face of emerging water challenges. A state-of-the-art resource for academic researchers, water resource professionals, and graduate students studying water resource governance and management.

Johan Rockström is the Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) and a leading scientist on global water resources and sustainable development. He has more than 15 years' experience of research on agriculture, water resources and ecosystem services, and over 100 research publications with more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific articles and several books in the fields of global environmental change, resilience and sustainability, agricultural water management, global water resources and food production. He has served as advisor to several international organizations and governments. Professor Rockström currently serves on many international committees and boards, including leading the ICSU task team on the future vision for global change research.

List of contributors; Preface; Introduction to the book; Acknowledgements; Part I. A New Perspective: 1. The role played by water in the biosphere; Part II. Living in a Human-Dominated World: 2. Human modification of the Earth system; 3. Balancing on a threshold of alternate development paths: regime shifts, traps and transformations; 4. Crucial functioning of and human dependence on the global water system; Part III. Food Production Globally: In Hotspot Regions and in the Landscape: 5. Food production: a mega water challenge; 6. Closing the yield gap in the savannah zone; 7. Water resources and functions for agro-ecological systems at the landscape scale; Part IV. Governance and Pathways: 8. Governance for navigating the novel freshwater dynamics of the Anthropocene; 9. Pathways to the future; Glossary; Index.