Governing Integrated Water Resources Management

This book reviews the concept, contemporary research efforts and the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The IWRM concept was established as an international guiding water management paradigm in the early 1990ies and has become a vital approach to solving the problems associated with the topic of water. The book summarizes fourteen comprehensive IWRM research projects with worldwide coverage and analyses their motivations, settings, approaches and implementation of results. Aiming to be an up-to-date interdisciplinary scientific reference, this book provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis of contemporary IWRM research, examples of science based implementations and a synthesis of the lessons learnt. It concludes with some major future challenges, the solving of which will further strengthen the IWRM concept.

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has become a global paradigm for the governance of surface, coastal and groundwaters. This Special Issue contains twelve articles related to the transfer of IWRM policy principles. The articles explore three dimensions of transfer—causes, processes, outcomes—and offer a theoretically inspiring, methodologically rich and geographically diverse engagement with IWRM policy transfer around the globe. As such, they can also productively inform a future research agenda on the ‘dimensional’ aspects of IWRM governance. Regarding the causes, the contributions apply, criticise, extend or revise existing approaches to policy transfer in a water governance context, asking why countries adopt IWRM principles and what mechanisms are in place to understand the adoption of these principles in regional or national contexts. When it comes to processes, articles in this Special Issue unpack the process of policy transfer and implementation and explore how IWRM principles travel across borders, levels and scales. Finally, this set of papers looks into the outcomes of IWRM policy transfer and asks what impact IWRM principles, once implemented, gave on domestic water governance, water quality and water supply, and how effective IWRM is at addressing critical water issues in specific countries.

The main focus of this book is sustainable management of water resources in a changing climate. The book also addresses the question of how to define and measure the sustainability of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The sustainability of IWRM is an important issue when planning and/or developing policies that consider the impact of climate change, water governance and ecohydrology in the context of a more holistic approach to ensure sustainable management of water resources. Sustainable IWRM is more about processes, and relatively little systematic or rigorous work has been done to articulate what components are the most essential to ensure the ongoing sustainability of IWRM efforts. The chapters cover topics including global prospective of IWRM; allocation of environmental flows in IWRM; echohydrology, water resources and environmental sustainability; climate change and IWRM; IWRM and water governance including social, economic, public health and cultural aspects; climate change resiliency actions related to water resources management sustainability and tools in support of sustainability for IWRM. This book will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, water resources mangers, policy and decision makers, donors, international institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations, educators, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. It is a useful reference for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), ecohydrology, climate change impact and adaptations, water governance, environmental flows, geographic information system and modeling tools, water and energy nexus and related topics.

The main focus of this book is sustainable management of water resources in a changing climate. The book also addresses the question of how to define and measure the sustainability of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The sustainability of IWRM is an important issue when planning and/or developing policies that consider the impact of climate change, water governance and ecohydrology in the context of a more holistic approach to ensure sustainable management of water resources. Sustainable IWRM is more about processes, and relatively little systematic or rigorous work has been done to articulate what components are the most essential to ensure the ongoing sustainability of IWRM efforts. The chapters cover topics including global prospective of IWRM; allocation of environmental flows in IWRM; echohydrology, water resources and environmental sustainability; climate change and IWRM; IWRM and water governance including social, economic, public health and cultural aspects; climate change resiliency actions related to water resources management sustainability and tools in support of sustainability for IWRM. This book will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, water resources mangers, policy and decision makers, donors, international institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations, educators, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. It is a useful reference for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), ecohydrology, climate change impact and adaptations, water governance, environmental flows, geographic information system and modeling tools, water and energy nexus and related topics.

Better water management will be crucial if we are to meet many of the key challenges of this century - feeding the worlds growing population and reducing poverty, meeting water and sanitation needs, protecting vital ecosystems, all while adapting to climate change. The approach known as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is widely recognized as the best way forward, but is poorly understood, even within the water sector. Since a core IWRM principle is that good water management must involve the water users, the understanding and involvement of other sectors is critical for success. There is thus an urgent need for practical guidance, for both water and development professionals, based on real world examples, rather than theoretical constructs. That is what this book provides. Using case studies, the book illustrates how better water management, guided by the IWRM approach, has helped to meet a wide range of sustainable development goals. It does this by considering practical examples, looking at how IWRM has contributed, at different scales, from very local, village-level experiences to reforms at national level and beyond to cases involving trans-boundary river basins. Using these on-the-ground experiences, from both developed and developing countries in five continents, the book provides candid and practical lessons for policy-makers, donors, and water and development practitioners worldwide, looking at how IWRM principles were applied, what worked, and, equally important, what didn‘t work, and why. Published with the Global Water Partnership

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.

This present volume contains 18 contributions, papers presented in four technical sessions during the national seminar on Governance and Management of water. The volume analyses the present crisis of water from different aspects and provides an opportunity to address the challenges on effective water governance and management. By focusing on different cases from around the country, the colume generates new ideas and hopes for probable of such challenges.