The Future: Integrated Water Management?

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog. The past few blog posts have considered the colonial and post-colonial influences on water management on the Nile. In this blog post, I would like to move away from the Nile, and look deeper into the concept of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), which I briefly introduced in my post about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. IWRM is an important topic, as it is believed to be the way forward with regards to dealing with issues of transboundary water management.  

IWRM in History

IWRM is a relatively new concept, it only came into discussions after the Agenda 21 and World Summit on Sustainable Development in 1992 (Savenijie and Van der Zaag, 2008). During the 60s and 70s water resources theory focused on water as an exploitative resource, concentrating efforts on engineering, and pioneering new technologies and ways of using water resources. However, in the 80s up until the 90s it was recognized that water was a finite resource that could be overexploited. Consequently, the focus shifted more onto the planning aspect of water on all scales (Savenijie and Van der Zaag, 2008). IWRM grew from this understanding on the importance of sustaining water resources for future generations- and the Dublin Principles, discussed and established at the International Conference on Water and the Environment (ICWE) in 1992 were a significant starting point to the integration of this concept into various sectors on international, national and regional scales.

The Dublin principles outlined the following: (Hassing et. al, 2009)

1)    Freshwater is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment.

2)    Water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy makers at all levels.

3)    Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water.

4)    Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.

This new understanding of water management derived partly from our awareness of the growing pressures on water resource distribution as a result of population growth. It is predicted that by 2050 the world’s population will increase by 50% (Hassing et. al, 2009), and most of this growth will take place in developing countries. Consequently, it is vital that all water stakeholders play a role in managing water resources effectively and sustainably to ensure the ability for future populations to continue to thrive. Thus, the concept of IWRM has been considered and translated into language understandable by people in all sectors, making it a multi-dimensional model for sustainable development. The Global Water Partnership were one of the first to define the theory:

“IWRM is a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems”(The Global Water Partnership, 1996 p.22).

Theory into Practice

IWRM is “not a theory that can be proved or disproved by scholars, it’s a flexible set of suggestions that can adapt to diverse local and national contexts” (Van der Zaag, 2005). Implementing IWRM requires a transformation of suitable policies, strategies and legislation surrounding sustainable water resource management and distribution. The IWRM institutional framework must be in place for policies to be successfully implemented.

Savenije and Van der Zaag, (2008) highlight that IWRM frameworks must consider:

-       All forms of water resources, green and blue water combined.

-       All water users (stakeholders), and not only the quantity available, but the importance of quality.

-       The importance of spatial skale (international, national, regional) in implementing management strategies and finding solutions to key water issues.

-       The variability of water resources (temporal scale)

Once these considerations are made, IWRM is influenced by key decision makers. Due to its cross-sectoral nature, it is hard for current decision makers to understand the needs of all stakeholders in attempting reach an appropriate decision regarding water resources. WaterNet is a network of university departments, research and training institutions focusing on water in South and East Africa. The aim of this foundation is to “build bridges between its key partners and those responsible for implementing IWRM” (Afrialliance, 2017). They aim to develop mechanisms through vigorous training and educational programs to “identify trends and knowledge gaps across academic disciplines, professional training and collaborative research” (Afrialliance, 2017). Their programs are set up with the hopes of creating a new brand of water manager. Someone who communicates with stakeholders from all fields hoping to understand all perspectives and make a decision based off relevant information on the best way forward on all scales (Van Der Zaag, 2005).

I hope that this post has given you an understanding of IWRM frameworks and how they work in theory. In my next blog post I hope to provide case studies of IWRM frameworks in practice, as well as look at the potential challenges of this concept.