Sustainable Water
Management
● Development that can meet the needs of the present generation without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World
Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).
● Explores the relationships among
○ economics
○ the environment
○ social equity
Rogers et al., 2006
Economic objectives cannot be maximized without satisfying environmental and
social constraints.
Environmental benefits cannot necessarily be maximized without satisfying
economic and social constraints.
Social benefits cannot be maximized without satisfying economic and
environmental constraints
Water resources sustainability
Water resources sustainability is the ability to use water in sufficient quantities and
quality from the local to the global scale to meet the needs of humans and
ecosystems for the present and the future to sustain life, and to protect humans
from the damages brought about by natural and human-caused disasters that
affect sustaining life (Mays, 2007)
Factors that must be considered in water resources
sustainability
● Includes the availability of freshwater supplies throughout periods of climatic
change, extended droughts, population growth, and to leave the needed
supplies for the future generations.
● Includes having the infrastructure, to provide water supply for human
consumption and food security, and to provide protection from water excess
such as floods and other natural disasters.
● includes having the infrastructure for clean water and for treating water after it
has been used by humans before being returned to water bodies.
Factors that must be considered in water resources
sustainability
● Must have adequate institutions to provide the management for both the
water supply management and water excess management.
● Must be considered on a local, regional, national, and international basis.
● The principles of integrated water resources management (IWRM) must be
implemented.
Integrated management
● means that all the different uses of water resources are considered together.
Water allocations and management decisions consider the effects of each use
on the others. They are able to take account of overall social and economic
goals, including the achievement of sustainable development.
● Management is used in its broadest sense. It emphasises that we must not
only focus on development of water resources but that we must consciously
manage water development in a way that ensures long term sustainable use
for future generations.
Integrated water resources management (IWRM)
● A systematic process for the sustainable development, allocation and
monitoring of water resource use in the context of social, economic and
environmental objectives.
● It contrasts with the sectoral approach that applies in many countries. When
responsibility for drinking water rests with one agency, for irrigation water with
another and for the environment with yet another, lack of cross-sectoral
linkages leads to uncoordinated water resource development and
management, resulting in conflict, waste and unsustainable systems.
WHY IWRM?
● Water resources are increasingly under pressure from
population growth, economic activity and intensifying
competition for the water among users.
● Water withdrawals have increased more than twice as fast as
population growth and currently one third of the world's
population live in countries that experience medium to high
water stress.
● Pollution is further enhancing water scarcity by reducing water
usability downstream.
WHY IWRM?
● Shortcomings in the management of water, a focus on
developing new sources rather than managing existing ones
better, and top-down sector approaches to water management
result in uncoordinated development and management of the
resource.
● More and more development means greater impacts on the
environment.
● Current concerns about climate variability and climate change
demand improved management of water resources to cope with
more intense floods and droughts.
KEY ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT
A. Water governance crisis
● Sectoral approaches to water resources management have dominated in the
past and are still prevailing. This leads to fragmented and uncoordinated
development and management of the resource.
● Thus, weak governance aggravates increased competition for the finite
resource.
● IWRM brings coordination and collaboration among the individual sectors,
plus a fostering of stakeholder participation, transparency and cost-effective
local management.
KEY ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT
B. Securing water for people
● Although most countries give first priority to satisfying basic human needs for
water, one fifth of the world’s population is without access to safe drinking
water and half of the population is without access to adequate sanitation.
● Halving the proportion of the population lacking water and sanitation services
by 2015 is one of the Millennium Development Goals. Doing so will require a
substantial reorientation of investment priorities, which will be very much more
readily achieved in those countries that are also implementing IWRM.
KEY ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT
C. Securing water for food production
● Water is increasingly seen as a key constraint on food production, equivalent
to if not more crucial than land scarcity. Irrigated agriculture is already
responsible for more than 70% of all water withdrawals (more than 90% of all
consumptive use of water).
● Even with an estimated need for an additional 15-20% of irrigation water over
the next 25 years - which is probably on the low side – serious conflicts are
likely to arise between water for irrigated agriculture and water for other
human and ecosystem uses.
● IWRM offers the prospect of greater efficiencies, water conservation and
demand management equitably shared among water users, and of increased
recycling and reuse of wastewater to supplement new resource development.
KEY ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT
D. Protecting vital ecosystems
● Terrestrial ecosystems in the upstream areas of a basin are important for
rainwater infiltration, groundwater recharge and river flow regimes.
● Aquatic ecosystems produce a range of economic benefits, including such
products as timber, fuel wood and medicinal plants, and they also provide
wildlife habitats and spawning grounds.
● Land and water resources management must ensure that vital ecosystems
are maintained and that adverse effects on other natural resources are
considered and where possible reduced when development and management
decisions are made.
● IWRM can help to safeguard an “environmental reserve” of water
commensurate with the value of ecosystems to human development.
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)
may be contemplated in at least three ways
1. the systematic consideration of the various dimensions of water: surface and
groundwater, quality and quantity
2. the implication that while water is a system it is also a component that
interacts with other systems
3. The interrelationships between water and social and economic development.
WATER MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
I. Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain
life, development and the environment.
○ The integrated approach to management of water resources
necessitates co-ordination of the range of human activities which
create the demands for water, determine land uses and generate
waterborne waste products. The principle also recognises the
catchment area or river basin as the logical unit for water resources
management.
WATER MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
II. Water development and management should be based on a
participatory approach, involving users, planners and policymakers at
all levels.
○ A participatory approach is the best means for achieving long-lasting
consensus and common agreement.
○ Participation is about taking responsibility, recognizing the effect of
sectoral actions on other water users and aquatic ecosystems and
accepting the need for change to improve the efficiency of water use
and allow the sustainable development of the resource.
WATER MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
III. Women play a central part in the provision, management and
safeguarding of water.
○ IWRM requires gender awareness. In developing the full and
effective participation of women at all levels of decision-making,
consideration has to be given to the way different societies assign
particular social, economic and cultural roles to men and women.
○ Involving men and women in influential roles at all levels of water
management can speed up the achievement of sustainability; and
managing water in an integrated and sustainable way contributes
significantly to gender equity by improving the access of women and
men to water and water-related services to meet their essential
needs
WATER MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
IV. Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should
be recognised as an economic good as well as a social good.
○ Managing water as an economic good is an important way of
achieving social objectives such as efficient and equitable use,
and of encouraging conservation and protection of water
resources.
○ Water has a value as an economic good as well as a social good.
Many past failures in water resources management are
attributable to the fact that the full value of water has not been
recognised.
Value and charges
● The value of water in alternative uses is important for the rational allocation of
water as a scarce resource, whether by regulatory or economic means.
● Charging (or not charging) for water is applying an economic instrument to
support disadvantaged groups, affect behaviour towards conservation and
efficient water usage, provide incentives for demand management, ensure
cost recovery and signal consumers’ willingness to pay for additional
investments in water services.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
1) Impacts
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Environment benefits
○ Ecosystems can benefit from applying an integrated approach to
water management by giving environmental needs a voice in the
water allocation debate.
○ IWRM can assist the sector by raising awareness among other
users of the needs of ecosystems and the benefits these
generate for them. Often these are undervalued and not
incorporated into planning and decision-making.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Environment benefits
○ The ecosystem approach provides a new framework for IWRM
that focuses more attention on a system approach to water
management: -protecting upper catchments (e.g. reforestation,
good land husbandry, soil erosion control), pollution control (e.g.
point source reduction, non-point source incentives, groundwater
protection) and environmental flows. It provides an alternative to
a sub-sector competition perspective that can join stakeholders
in developing a shared view and joint action.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Agriculture benefits
○ Indiscriminate reduction in water allocation for agriculture may
have far-reaching economic and social consequences.
○ With IWRM, planners are encouraged to look beyond the sector
economics and take account of the implications of water
management decisions on employment, the environment and
social equity.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Agriculture benefits
○ IWRM is able to reflect the combined “value” of water to society
as a whole in difficult decisions on water allocations. This may
mean that the contribution of food production to health, poverty
reduction and gender equity
○ Equally, IWRM can bring into the equation the reuse potential of
agricultural return flows for other sectors and the scope for
agricultural reuse of municipal and industrial wastewaters.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Agriculture benefits
○ IWRM is able to reflect the combined “value” of water to society
as a whole in difficult decisions on water allocations. This may
mean that the contribution of food production to health, poverty
reduction and gender equity
○ Equally, IWRM can bring into the equation the reuse potential of
agricultural return flows for other sectors and the scope for
agricultural reuse of municipal and industrial wastewaters.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Water supply and sanitation benefits
○ properly applied IWRM would lead to the water security of the
world’s poor and unserved being assured. The implementation of
IWRM based policies should mean increased security of
domestic water supplies, as well as reduced costs of treatment
as pollution is tackled more effectively
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Water supply and sanitation benefits
○ Recognizing the rights of people, and particularly women and the
poor, to a fair share of water resources for both domestic and
household-based productive uses, leads inevitably to the need to
ensure proper representation of these groups on the bodies that
make water resource allocation decisions.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Water supply and sanitation benefits
○ The focus on integrated management and efficient use should be
a stimulus to the sector to push for recycling, reuse and waste
reduction. High pollution charges backed by rigid enforcement
have led to impressive improvements in industrial water-use
efficiencies in the industrialised countries, with benefits for
domestic water supplies and the environment.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Water supply and sanitation benefits
○ Introduction of IWRM will improve the opportunity for introduction
of sustainable sanitation solutions that aim to minimise
waste-generating inputs, and reduction of waste outputs, and to
solve sanitation problems as close as possible to where they
occur.
WATER USE, IMPACTS AND BENEFITS
2) Benefits from IWRM
● Water supply and sanitation benefits
○ At a practical local level, improved integration of water resource
management could lead to greatly reduced costs of providing
domestic water services.
