ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of system’s stability and resilience as the basis of sustainable development. Processes such as evaporation, transpiration, condensation, formation of cloud and fog droplets, atmospheric water vapour transportation, precipitation, interceptions by plants, uptake of bacteria, plants animals and human beings, infiltration towards the ground water bodies, as well as surface and subsurface flow are the components of which the hydrological cycle consists. Water evaporates at the surface of oceans or lakes. Human intervention in the Earth system, be it technical or organizational, shows mostly if not always positive as well as negative effects. It is certainly not a surprise that farming was first practiced along large rivers such as the Nile, Euphrates and Tigris, or the Yellow River in China. Sustainable development resembles the process of absorbance which drives and secures the system in the state of resilience. The term “sustain-able” describes the ability to sustain.
