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El Manejo Integrado de los Recursos Hídricos (MIRH) es de vital importancia para ambientes insulares donde el volumen del acuífero es limitado y el incremento en la demanda, junto con el deterioro en su calidad, amenazan su disponibilidad para el futuro. En el siguiente ensayo se analiza el MIRH en la isla Cozumel (México) a partir de la definición de la Asociación Mundial para el Agua (AMA), con lo cual se caracteriza la situación actual de las políticas, instituciones e instrumentos (PIeIs) en el contexto local y federal. El análisis bajo la definición de la AMA permite homologar criterios para abordar el MIRH y así aportar al enriquecimiento del concepto a través del estudio del caso particular en la isla Cozumel; además de contribuir a identificar los retos para la implementación del MIRH en la zona de estudio. Mediante este ensayo fue posible identificar las bases de las PIeIs y su sincronización local con la federal, así como el manejo actual del acuífero, y se detectó una falta de instrumentos para la planeación participativa con los cuales se involucre a los usuarios del recurso, a nivel local, dentro de las decisiones referentes a su manejo.

The Rhone River has long been regarded upon its productive capacities. Shared between two Nation-States, Switzerland and France, the River has been a major development factor for the two countries and the regions situated along its banks. The Swiss part of the Rhone is characterised by the great diversity of its uses. It flows from the Rhone glacier through the agriculture plains of Valais, into the Lake Geneva and then through the city of Geneva. The River has always produced numerous goods and services. It is mainly used for agriculture in its upper part and for hydropower production in Geneva where management of the Rhone is delegated to a semi-public company, the SIG (Services Industriels de Genève). The River has long been canalised and its natural flow massively modified. On the French side, since the 1933, the CNR (Compagnie Nationale du Rhone) is in charge of the river management from the Swiss border to the Mediterranean Sea. The company has three missions: hydropower production, navigation and irrigation. Later on, in a post-war context, the French central State canalised the River considering the Rhone first of all as an industrial tool of Nation's reconstruction (Pritchard, 2011). This phase greatly modified the state of the River with the construction of 19 infrastructures of hydropower production. The emergence of new water management perspectives (IWRM for example), the implementation of the water framework directive and the increase of environmental legislations and concerns modified the very nature of the Rhone. If, on both sides of the border, the management of the river has been partly delegated to hydropower companies, public stakeholders tend to look for new ways of managing the river basin. Thoughts emerge to reconsider the scale of governance of the river and its actors' configuration. This communication concerns the current debates and shift in the management of the Rhone river. It aims to show the issues related to a River when its flow is essentially governed through Hydropower companies. It shows what are the constraints of shifting from a sectorial and industrial management of the river to a more integrated water governance perspective. It analyses how the integration of a basin management could be achieved in a River mainly governed by private arrangements, between hydropower companies, benefiting from strong use rights. Our communication has several objectives. Firstly, we analyse the existing management arrangements of the Rhone River. We look at the actors' configuration and try to understand the rivalries emerging among the different uses of the Rhone, focusing on the central function of hydropower companies and their multiple scales of intervention. Secondly, we concentrate ourselves on the actual new phase of River management and look at how public actors attempt to tackle the central issue of increasing coordination at the basin scale. Finally, we discuss different questions such as which scale to adopt to achieve an IWRM in a transborder context? To what extent could it be done in an intersectoral perspective (Nahrath et al. 2009) while hydropower producers have such a central function in the regulation of the River? Should it be based on the river basin scale (Hering & Ingold, 2012) or on more flexible and multi-scalar arrangements? What kind of institutional and governance structures could match with those scale rearrangements?

By the later part of the 21st Century, our planet will be faced with compelling climatic circumstances requiring tradeoffs to maintain viable environmental conditions and standards of living. The prognosis for people near coastlines and waterways is particularly dire without decisive actions that capitalize on shared strengths such as ecosystems. One clear opportunity is the regenerative services and co-benefits of natural infrastructure that reduce the impacts of environmental disasters as magnified by climatic change. Certainly, nature-based solutions are increasingly being viewed as critical actions to reduce societal risk. However, to advance the use of natural infrastructure through eco-engineering, there is a need to clarify the science regarding risk reduction effectiveness, develop agreeable principles, standards, and designs, and grow a demonstration site network responsive to circumstances faced by communities around the globe. In addition, there is a need to consider the legal, policy, and regulatory obstacles and opportunities for natural infrastructure within local to national contexts (i.e., science-based building codes, architectural design criteria, incentive policies, etc.). Ultimately, the integration of science, designs, and policy coupled with installation within several global resource management processes versus global resource frames (IWRM, ICZM, etc.) will help establish eco-engineering standards. Supportive coastal, river, and urban examples from around the world are used to illustrate the current state of knowledge, model this integration of science, design, and policy, serve as initial "benchmark site", and finally help define guiding principles for the emerging field of eco-engineering.

Study region: Malawi. Study focus: Integrated water resource management (IWRM) of transboundary aquifers (TBA’s) is becoming increasingly important. Without adequate and accurate scientific knowledge of their extent and characteristics, uninformed policy creation could lead to unsustainable management of these vital resources. This is particularly important within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) where up to 85% of domestic water is supplied by groundwater. In this paper, Malawi is used as a case study to critically evaluate the current transboundary aquifer assessment frameworks within the region and their value in promoting IWRM. A series of illustrative conceptual models of TBA interactions pertinent to the Malawian national border are presented and we consider how TBA assessments may be integrated to national IWRM and strategic policy development. New hydrological insights for the region: Current TBA assessments of Malawi and the wider SADC neglect multiple aspects needed for a national scale management plan. This includes full border TBA system identification alongside, given the geology of the region, consideration of the discontinuous nature of basement complex aquifers and localised alluvial deposits that both result in smaller scale aquifer units. Conceptualising such local scale complexity and encouraging countries to develop a strategy that systematically examines TBA systems along their national border at relevant scales will allow for more focused conjunctive policy creation and sustainable management of TBA’s. Keywords: Transboundary, Groundwater, Hydrogeology, Integrated Water Resources Management, Africa, Malawi

The Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) concept was discussed at large international conferences all over the world in the 1990s and into the beginning of this millennium. As a result, the Special Directive of the World Summit on stable development was adopted in 2002, according to which all countries should have developed Integrated Water Resource Management and Water Saving Plans by 2005. The IWRM’s main goals are as follows

This study sheds light on the importance of boundary spanners in developing the conditions that foster trust between stakeholders in integrated water resource management (IWRM). Boundary spanners routinely reach across organizational borders to build interconnections and interdependencies in order to manage complex problems, inform policy, and encourage knowledge sharing. The importance of the boundary spanning role has been shown in organizational business practices, urban planning, and higher education yet little research exists on its impact in IWRM. The mixed methods approach used in this study involved surveying and interviewing individuals with previous experience with IWRM in Nebraska. The results of the survey indicated that boundary spanning behavior predicted a large percentage of the variance in conditions that build trust between stakeholders. Further exploration revealed that boundary spanning, cooperation, power imbalance, and scale mismatch were predictors of trust building conditions. In addition, authentic leadership, autonomy, and trustworthiness were predictors of boundary spanners' ability to establish trust building conditions between stakeholders, with trustworthiness being the strongest predictor. The qualitative phase included interviews with thirteen individuals who participated in the online survey and scored high in boundary spanning behaviors. The interview analysis resulted in seven themes, which strongly support the promising role that boundary spanners play in fostering conditions that build trust between stakeholders within IWRM. This paper reflects on the importance of a boundary spanner within integrated water management, demonstrates the effectiveness of boundary spanning on the development of trust building conditions, and encourages more research on how to better identify and train boundary spanners to assist in the co-production of knowledge.

The challenge in the present-day context of managing and distributing water has been recognized and hence the integrated water resource management (IWRM) paradigm has emerged. The last decade in particular has given an increased emphasis on the understanding of the management of water resources using the IWRM paradigm. The Nile River Basin Action Plan in 1994 defined 22 development projects covering broad themes like water-resource planning and management, regional cooperation and environmental protection. The prevalent approach to water resource management stems from the fact that it has always been the domain of technocrats and engineers. The participation of women in the management of land and water resources, very often has overlooked the divergent needs and interests of not only rural women but also of the urban poor women. Women should be factored into water resource management not only for reasons for equity but also because of the fact that they are critical players in traditional knowledge systems.

This is an immersive journey through different water management concepts. The conceptual attractiveness of concepts is not enough; they must be applicable in the real and fast-changing world. Thus, beyond the concepts, our long-standing challenge remains increasing water security. This is about stewardship of water resources for the greatest good of societies and the environment. It is a public responsibility requiring dynamic, adaptable, participatory, and balanced planning. It is all about coordination and sharing. Multi-sectoral approaches are needed to adequately address the threats and opportunities relating to water resources management in the context of climate change, rapid urbanization, and growing disparities. The processes involved are many and need consistency and long-term commitment to succeed. Climate change is closely related to the problems of water security, food security, energy security and environment sustainability. These interconnections are often ignored when policy-makers devise partial responses to individual problems. They call for broader public policy planning tools with the capacity to encourage legitimate public/collective clarification of the trade-offs and the assessment of the potential of multiple uses of water to facilitate development and growth. We need to avoid mental silos and to overcome the current piecemeal approach to solving the water problems. This requires a major shift in practice for organizations (governmental as well as donor organizations) accustomed to segregating water problems by subsectors. Our experience with integration tells us that (1) we need to invest in understanding the political economy of different sectors; (2) we need new institutional arrangements that function within increasing complexity, cutting across sectoral silos and sovereign boundaries; (3) top down approaches for resources management will not succeed without bottom-up efforts to help people improve their livelihoods and their capacity to adapt to increasing resource scarcity as well as to reduce unsustainable modes of production. Political will, as well as political skill, need visionary and strong leadership to bring opposing interests into balance to inform policy- making with scientific understanding, and to negotiate decisions that are socially accepted. Managing water effectively across a vast set of concerns requires equally vast coordination. Strong partnerships and knowledge creation and sharing are essential. Human civilization – we know- is a response to challenge. Certainly, water scarcity can be a source of conflict among competing users, particularly when combined with other factors of political or cultural tension. But it can also be an inducement to cooperation even in high tension areas. We believe that human civilization can find itself the resources to respond successfully to the many water challenges, and in the process make water a learning ground for building the expanded sense of community and sharing necessary to an increasingly interconnected world.

This article explores the water policy narrative in Pakistan, and identifies its historical trajectories and influences, as well as the impact of the global agenda setting of water for 2030. For this purpose, water sector reforms in Pakistan are examined as a case study. The National Water Policy (NWP) 2018 and Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) reforms are critically evaluated and loopholes identified, in terms of both theoretical aspects and constraints in their practical implementation. The overall analysis reveals that the engineering narrative is dominant in policy circles and large-scale infrastructure construction is seen as an exceptional measure to overcome the current loss of storage potential due to sedimentation. On the other hand, the adoption of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) framework reflects the desire of state institutions to imbue water policy reform with international credibility. The IWRM framework has been adopted as isomorphic mimicry to appease international financing institutions and donors. PIM reform is thus far from delivering the desired results due to ideological battles among new (i.e., the Participatory Farmers Institution) and traditional bureaucratic irrigation institutions. As adopted, the global agenda setting of water, in the shape of IWRM, is a repackaging of existing activities, and prevents alternative thinking in the setting of water priorities according to developmental needs.

The decentralization framework and the Dublin Principles on Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) emphasize the need for a participatory approach to irrigation water management. This study identifies the factors influencing farmers' decision to, and extent of participation in the maintenance of irrigation infrastructure in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa based on cross-section data collected from 320 randomly selected smallholder irrigating farmers. A two-step Heckman regression model was applied in the analysis. It was established that households whose heads were older, block committee members, with larger irrigation plots, good soil quality and experiencing severe irrigation water shortages are more likely to participate in maintenance of irrigation infrastructure. On the other hand, farmers with insecure land tenure and with no access to irrigation water were less likely to make the decision to participate. Farmers who were members of the farming cooperative as well as block committee members and those paying irrigation water costs were likely to intensively participate in maintaining irrigation infrastructure. Therefore, decentralization alone cannot lead to improved irrigation outcomes. Several factors are necessary for households to participate intensively in the maintenance of irrigation infrastructure. Governments should address these challenges before handing irrigation schemes to their beneficiaries.

Financing of multiple use (i.e. domestic and productive) water services was identified as an important ingredient to ensure improved water access for rural poor and broaden livelihood options in South Africa. Following the principles of integrated water resource management (IWRM), efficient, equitable and sustainable investments in improved water services should be based on a thorough understanding of actual demand by consumers. Comprehensive studies looking at multiple use water services are not common in South African rural areas, where most of the economic analyses focus on either domestic or irrigation water demand. This study aims at filling this gap by assessing the household demand for multiple use water services in Sekororo-Letsoalo area in the Limpopo Province. Choice modelling is the approach used to identify the attributes determining demand for water services and quantify their relative importance. Results show that households in rural areas are willing to pay for improvements in water services. Due to the current poor level of water services in the area, users are primarily concerned with basic domestic uses and, consequently, demand for productive uses is low. Only households already relatively well served are interested in engaging in multiple water uses.Keywords: choice modelling, multiple water uses, domestic water demand, water services, willingness to pay

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This case study explores the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority’s experience in implementing IWRM. Successes include protecting life and property by mitigating flood and erosion hazards; building capacity through multi-stakeholder collaborations; and fostering community stewardship. Ongoing challenges include limited resources and narrow mandate for addressing broader watershed and natural resources issues; and a need to enhance relationships with First Nations. The NBMCA has learned numerous lessons on how to apply IWRM, including collaborating early and often and fostering community stewardship.

This study examines successes and limitations of integrated water resource management (IWRM) for the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB), a basin management entity in British Columbia, Canada. Effective governance, adequate financing and scientifically informed decision making are attributes contributing to the OBWB’s IWRM success. OBWB’s IWRM challenges include meaningful engagement of First Nations, public apathy towards water governance, succession planning for retiring professionals, and management authority limitations. Constraints on the OBWB’s authority and perceived lack of need to formalize the IWRM approach will affect other local IWRM applications. The study adds a western Canadian example of basin management to IWRM practice.

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is widely accepted and has been implemented though international, national and regional water management guidelines. Nonetheless, concrete implementation of IWRM gives rise to new questions for policy analysis. Scholars interested in water regulation, the design of effective and efficient policy instruments, and structures of participative and multi-level policy processes face challenges regarding research design, concepts and empirical approaches. This special issue integrates research about regional, national and transboundary policy perspectives on water management in seven countries, four continents and two transnational water bodies. From the six articles presented in this special issue, we learn more about how to define integration, to think about borders and scales and to theoretically and empirically study collaborative management in water policy analysis.

The existing methods of river evaluation tend to focus exclusively on water quantity, therefore, they do not provide a suitable methodology for integrated water management. In this study, research was carried out to develop an integrated river evaluation system that can simultaneously consider water quantity and water quality to improve the existing river evaluation methods. To this end, specific indicators were established to evaluate water quantity and water quality, moreover, an integrated evaluation formula was developed to express each indicator as an index. The integrated evaluation formula used additive functions and enabled integrated and comprehensive river evaluation through the sum of each indicator&rsquo, s indices. The research subjects were rivers in the Paldang watershed, which surrounds important water resources in rep. of Korea. The rivers were analyzed using the study&rsquo, s integrated river evaluation formula to identify the deteriorated grade of the water quality as well as the water quantity. Finally, the results of the integrated river evaluation rating were found to be poor or very poor. Based on this, the study determined that an integrated river management policy is required to simultaneously consider water quantity and water quality to restore the integrity of the rivers in the Special Countermeasures Area. The existing evaluations of rivers, which had been conducted only with a focus on water quantity, could be judged narrow or incomplete results. Based on this finding, it was also possible to identify an urgent need for a basic river management plan that can consider both water quantity and water quality organically. Ultimately, the study demonstrated that its methodology was able to make highly intuitive judgments about rivers&rsquo, current conditions, thus, it can be utilized to generate basic data for the establishment of customized river management policies.

Although the Dublin principles of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) are well-established, the third principle on gender is commonly missing in practice. We use gender mainstreaming to identify examples where gender-specific perspectives might influence water resource management modelling choices. We show how gender considerations could lead to different choices in all modelling phases, providing examples from three familiar components of modelling practice: (a) problem framing and conceptualisation, (b) model construction, documentation and evaluation and (c) model interpretation and decision support. We suggest a future approach for integrating gender perspectives in modelling. Including gender dimensions could strengthen modelling results by engaging with a range of stakeholders and highlighting questions, knowledge, values and choices that may otherwise be overlooked. Such an approach won't always result in a different model and results. At the very least it's a mechanism to explore and reveal gendered assumptions knowingly, or unknowingly, embedded into the model.

Water management remains a difficult and complex task due to the multiplicity of user-users, which necessitates the use of decision-making tools, especially in regions with high water stress. This paper attempts to test a model to develop an integrated water resource management scenario, applied to a watershed (Mabtouh River in northwestern Algeria), hosting hydro-agricultural infrastructure (dam, irrigated perimeter), an industrial zone as well as urban agglomerations. The methodology adopted consists in applying the Water Assessment and Planning System (WEAP) model based on a reference year dataset (2014), which attempts to consider the allocation of water to the Horizon 2050, according to two scenarios involving climatic constraint. The results lead to the implementation of scenarios contributing to reducing conflicts of use between consumers.

In the past decade, water security has emerged as a new discourse in water governance challenging the more traditional dominant discourse of integrated water resources management (IWRM). This review article applies the ‘ways of knowing’ approach to study the relationship between these two discourses. In doing so, we uncover how IWRM has been narrowly construed as a prescriptive way of knowing water based largely on technical–scientific knowledge, while water security represents a discursive way of knowing water with a greater consideration of human values, ethics and power. We argue that these two ways of knowing are complementary rather than conflicting. As both discourses are pursued at multiple levels, the practical way of knowing will emerge to represent how these concepts interact in a specific policy context.

This paper evaluates two established decision making methods and analyses their performance and suitability within an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) problem. The methods under comparison are Info-Gap decision theory (IG) and Robust Optimisation (RO), with particular regard to two key issues: (a) a local vs global measure of water supply robustness and (b) a pre-specified vs optimisation method of generating intervention strategies. Solutions are compared with plans proposed from current industry practice especially in regard to employing a longer planning horizon. The results reveal the impact of using alternative methodologiesand analysis parameters on the final intervention strategies selected.

We describe qualitative planning and decision support for Integrated Water Resource Management. The underlying method assesses the contamination risk of water resources on a quaternary catchment level, in order to identify hot-spot areas with high problem intensity and with a priority call for action. The method has been fully automated with the help of the Disy Cadenza workbench. The results have been made available to decision makers through a WebGIS (Cadenza Web) and through a Tablet-GIS (Cadenza Mobile) for offline usage.

[EN] An increase in water demands, exacerbated by climate change and the tightening of environmental requirements, leads to a reduction in available water resources for economic uses. This situation poses challenges for water resource planning and management. Water accounting has emerged as an appropriate tool to improve transparency and control in water management. There are multiple water accounting approaches, but they generally involve a very exhaustive list of accounted concepts. According to our findings in this research, one of the best water accounting methodologies is the Australian Water Accounting Standard. However, its implementation for integrated water resource planning and management purposes calls into questioning the amount of information and level of detail necessary for the users of water accounts. In this paper, we present a different method of applying the Australian Water Accounting Standard in relation to water resource management, which improves its utility. In order to compare the original approach and that proposed here, we present and discuss an application to the Júcar Water Resource System, in eastern Spain. 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved., Authors would like to thank Universitat Politecnica de Valencia for its Support Programme for Research and Development, and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for its financial support through the projects SCARCE (Consolider-Ingenio 2010 CSD2009-00065) and NUTEGES (CGL2012-34978). We also value the support provided by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program in financing the projects SIRIUS (FP7-SPACE-2010-1, 262902), DROUGHT-R&SPI (FP7-ENV-2011, 282769) and ENHANCE (FP7-ENV-2012, 308438). We would also like to express our gratitude to the Jucar River Basin District Agency (Spanish Ministry of Environment) for the data provided to develop this study. Finally, thanks to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Adelaide, Australia, for hosting one of the authors for a research stay. This paper reflects only the authors' viewpoints and the mentioned institutions are not liable for any use that may be made of the information herein contained.

En búsqueda de realizar una aproximación a las implicaciones de la gobernanza del agua en Colombia, este trabajo (1) indaga acerca del concepto en cuestión, (2) su relación con la Gestión Integrada del Recurso Hídrico (GIRH), (3) expone brevemente el marco institucional que soporta el patrón de gestión de aguas vigente en Colombia, (4) lo analiza críticamente y (5) finalmente, presenta algunas consideraciones pertinentes a cerca de las posibilidades y desafíos que, desde las instituciones, supone la implementación de modelos de GIRH en Colombia. In order to approach the implications of water governance in Colombia, the first part of the present work seeks to investigate the concept and its relationship with Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). Then the Institutional framework that supports the current water management pattern is presented and following, a critical analysis of it is made. Finally some pertinent considerations are presented regarding the possibilities and challenges that implementing IWRM models in Colombia imply.

The lessons and opportunities of integrated water resource management in Ontario are described by focusing attention on conservation authorities: watershed-based agencies formed between 1946 and 1979. Six foundational principles of the programme are explained: the watershed as the management unit; local initiative; provincial–municipal partnership; a healthy environment for a healthy economy; a comprehensive approach; and cooperation and coordination. Illustrative examples from the Grand River and Halton Region conservation authorities provide the basis for conclusions. The six principles have served the integrated water resource management programme well. In addition, the ability to make difficult budgetary decisions and adapt to changing public need has contributed to the conservation authorities' success.

Despite the strong emphasis on public participation in the National Water Act (NWA), South Africa has yet to implement a comprehensive and functional approach to public engagement at the level of Water Management Areas. Part of the problem is that actual requirements are not explicitly articulated anywhere. This has led to the situation where public participatory processes are poorly conceptualised, misdirected and often perceived as confusing by stakeholders. ‘Participation fatigue’ is the consequence of this accompanied by a growing frustration with the implementation of the content of the Act. The intention for decentralised democratic water resources management is consequently seriously jeopardised if the public participation processes are not clearly presented in the public domain. In this paper we draw on a number of sources, namely a national pilot integrated catchment management programme called the Save the Sand Project initiated in the north-eastern part of SA, a Water Research Commission project on public participation and a DWAF project that funded the exploration of public participation in the Sand River Catchment. The latter (2005 -2007) supported a better understanding of public participation processes and dynamics in a high-density rural catchment, the findings from which are reported here. Additionally this paper is referenced against the current discourse on public participation in water resources aimed at elucidating public participation in integrated water resource management (IWRM) in South Africa. The focus of the work reported in this paper is specifically on the development and implementation of catchment management strategies as the locus of decentralised, democratised, participatory water resource management. In this paper we start out by discussing how complexities surrounding public engagement might present newly established catchment management agencies (CMAs) with serious challenges and then move on to a proposed framework for focusing public engagement on specific IWRM tasks. The framework outlines tasks where multi-stakeholder platforms collaboratively design strategic water management actions that are assembled as the catchment management strategy (CMS), a statutory obligation for CMAs. Keywords: public participation, catchment management strategies, National Water Act, integrated water resource management

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) has become a focal point of discussion about water management. While there are differences in viewpoint regarding IWRM’s use and effectiveness, two key elements that are discussed in relation to the concept of IWRM are 1) developing more holistic perspectives, and 2) engaging stakeholders in water management processes. We investigate the relationship between these two key elements of IWRM and water management practices associated with Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLS) in the United States (US). Drawing data from all 63 TMDL reports approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) between 1998 and 2006 for the states of Ohio and West Virginia, we assess whether these key elements of IWRM are incorporated into TMDL practices. We also conduct preliminary tests to assess the relationship between these key elements of IWRM and watershed restoration progress as perceived by state environmental officials. The data we collect suggest that Ohio and West Virginia are creating holistic information on watershed management as they develop TMDL reports and that they are engaging stakeholders in TMDL processes in a number of cases. We also find positive associations between the incorporation of key elements of IWRM and perceived progress in watershed restoration. The data we present also suggest that steps are being taken to implement TMDLs in Ohio and West Virginia, but they indicate that the progress being achieved is modest compared to the ambitious goals of the American Clean Water Act. Our data and analyses are limited in several key respects. However, they do suggest that broad-based watershed planning and stakeholder engagement— practices consistent with IWRM—may contribute positively to TMDL implementation and watershed restoration progress. They also suggest that TMDL processes could play a positive role in supporting more aggressive IWRM efforts in the future. Keywords: water pollution, water policy, Clean Water Act (CWA), Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), holistic water management, stakeholder engagement, collaborative watershed management.

Four major paradigm shifts in water management include the shift from: government to governance, centralization to decentralization, water as a gift of God to water as an economic good, and sectoral to integrated water resource management. Are these paradigm shifts compatible with cultural/institutional practices in Ghana? Using theoretical and empirical arguments, this paper affirms that Ghana often adopts such paradigm shifts due to exogenous pressures but the absence of domestic ownership, inadequate resources, and institutional mismatches, often result in limited implementation. This paper recommends water governance which focuses more on prioritization, indigenizing exogenous ideas, and working within existing cultural practices.

Water crises are often crises of governance. To address interrelated issues of securing access to sustainable sources of safe water for the world’s populations, scholar and practitioners have suggested fostering improved modes of water governance that support the implementation of integrated water resource management (IWRM). Recently, implementation of an IWRM approach was announced as a target for achieving Goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study employs an analytical hierarchy process with a SWOT analysis to assess the current institutional and political context of water governance in Bangladesh and evaluate IWRM as a means to achieve the SDGs.

Access to safe water is a worldwide problem facing three quarters of a billion people every day. The problem of access to water is not primarily due to an overall scarcity of water, but rather the unequal geographical and seasonal distribution of the water resources. The key issue at stake here is, how to make water available. The new approach presented by international institutions for improving water access is Integrated Water Resource Management. This chapter questions this new approach and highlights the depoliticizing implications.

The important relationship between health and water necessitates consideration of water vulnerability. Water vulnerability is contingent upon biophysical and social drivers operating at multiple scales, and is difficult to assess. This paper offers a systematic review of 50 water vulnerability assessment tools. We identify and synthesise the contents of these assessment tools (710 indicators) into five dimensions and 22 sub-dimensions and consider the extent to which they reflect environmental and social aspects. The findings are discussed in light of a holistic approach to water resources management, and specifically Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Significant opportunities exist to enhance the efficacy of water vulnerability assessment tools by incorporating indicators and operational measures for social considerations (e.g., adaptation, institutions, governance) that are developed outside the context of water. AuthorCount:3

The notion of hydrosolidarity has permeated international discourses on water management, but it has received little comprehensive review. This paper traces the intellectual origins of hydrosolidarity and it explores how the concept has been applied by water scholars, organizations and in global water venues, like World Water Forums. Evolving conceptions and meanings of hydrosolidarity are presented and its kinship to related, sometimes oppositional terms, untangled. In particular, it explores how hydrosolidarity has evolved to serve as a socio-ethical annex to integrated water resources management. The paper concludes by examining some critiques and addressing the potential of hydrosolidarity in water management. 36;3

The Sustainable Development Goals have placed integrated resources management, such as integrated water resource management, at the heart of their targets. The upcoming “International Decade for Action—Water for Sustainable Development”, 2018–2028 has highlighted the importance of promoting efficient water usage at all levels, taking into account the water, food, energy, and environmental nexus. While integrated resource management approaches have been defined and applied for decades, nexus approaches are more recent. For these latter approaches to be implemented on the ground, their system boundaries need to be clarified. While the Water–Energy–Food Nexus focuses on sectors, the Water–Soil–Waste Nexus addresses linkages between environmental resources—namely water, soil and waste—to tackle sustainable management. In this paper, we analyzed integrated management systems and how their system boundaries are defined. From this we determined that in order for system boundaries to be applicable, they should be clear, wide and flexible. Based on this, we propose the boundary of the Water–Soil–Waste Nexus system. We use two case studies to exemplify the usefulness of these system boundaries.

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is gaining increased acceptance among water policy makers and researchers as a way to create more effective governance institutions, leading towards integrated water development solutions for poverty alleviation, while addressing social, economic and environmental aspects of water challenges. However, global environmental change poses fundamental challenges to water policy makers as it implies vast scientific, and hence, policy uncertainty; its implications for international water governance initiatives remain unspecified, effectively hindering dialogue on how current IWRM initiatives should be modified. This paper addresses the lag between our growing understanding of resilient interconnected freshwater resources (and their governance) and the reforms being promoted by policy makers. In particular, there is a need to rethink some of IWRM's key components to better tackle the challenges posed by the complex behaviour of interconnected social-ecological systems and global environmental change.

Managing drainage in rural and peri-urban environments has become an essential part of integrated water management. Drainage has become a science of control, storage and (re)use while meeting triple bottom-line requirements (environment, social and economic assessments). Controlled drainage in rural settings aims at maintaining a groundwater table regime that will provide adequate rootzone aeration and soil salinity control but will not remove or use more water than necessary. In urban and peri-urban environments, the philosophy of water sensitive urban design (WSUD) aims at an integrated approach to urban water management through emphasising sensitivity to water in urban design. Urban landscape and architectural building elements now combine the areas of controlling flood flows, detention and treatment of stormwater and the reuse of stormwater as their principal functionalities. Constructed wetlands treat stormwater for recharge of aquifers and subsequent recovery for non-potable reuse. The increase in population, the urbanisation of rural and lowland (coastal-) areas, and the emergence of mega-cities together call for state-of-the-art drainage design as part of integrated water resources management at a river basin scale. This article describes the latest technological advances in drainage, flood management and water quality control

In this article we explore the usefulness of an Integrated Water Resources Management philosophy in the formulation of the Murray-Darling Basin plan. Trends towards amalgamating a number of policy objectives into a single planning instrument and the role of complexity and the so-called ‘systems thinking’ and ‘integration’ are considered. The article goes beyond the Murray-Darling and compares similar policy trends in urban water planning, particularly in Victoria. We conclude that integrated water resource management, as a broad policy philosophy, is not presently delivering efficacious outcomes in both rural and urban settings. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

A concept of co-evolution is argued to complement Integrated Water Resource Management's gap in administrative integration. Co-evolution's complement to Integrated Water Resource Management is explored through issues surrounding joint water management arrangements between the Israelis and Palestinians in the late 1990s and early 21st century. How co-evolution contributes to such a water management approach highlights how we might think about what it means to encourage innovation. Conclusions of the article suggest co-evolution provides the language and description for the changing interactions and political environment and therefore provides a sharper conceptualization for administrative integration.

A systems, holistic, or ecosystem approach is often advocated for water management, and has led to the emergence of integrated water resource management, or IWRM. Such an approach can be interpreted as ‘comprehensive’ or ‘integrated’, and analysts, planners, and managers need to understand the difference. Edge or boundary problems always are encountered when applying a holistic approach, and design of institutional arrangements cannot eliminate these problems but can minimize them. IWRM often does not have a statutory basis, which can lead to implementation challenges. By linking IWRM to land-use planning and official plans at the local level, IWRM can be given credibility, as well as be systematically connected to land-based issues.

The concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM) has been around for some 60 years. It was rediscovered by some in the 1990s. While at a first glance, the concept of IWRM looks attractive, a deeper analysis brings out many problems, both in concept and implementation, especially for meso- to macro-scale projects. The definition of IWRM continues to be amorphous, and there is no agreement on fundamental issues like what aspects should be integrated, how, by whom, or even if such integration in a wider sense is possible. The reasons for the current popularity of the concept are analyzed, and it is argued that in the real world, the concept will be exceedingly difficult to be made operational.

My then colleagues and I would have benefited greatly if we had this book as a resource while working as coastal planners for the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage, and many years e...

Governance, focusing on relationships between organizations and social groups involved in water decision making, usually has not been given as much attention as technical matters related to water risk management. Furthermore, implementation challenges are endemic in management. Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is one means to achieve effectiveness and efficiency through systematic coordination and collaboration. Effective integration (IWRM) and innovative governance can improve implementation, and thereby enhance capacity to address water risk management.

In recent years, water shortages have become an increasing concern, with a growing imbalance between water demand and availability reaching critical levels in the world. Managed aquifer recharge incorporated to integrated water resource management (IWRM) is an effective solution to this challenge and could assure sufficient water supply in the local or regional scale, for all the end users. The main objective of the paper is the presentation of different technologies of artificial infiltration that could be incorporated in the process of integrated water resource management at a local scale, where competing demands of different users and stakeholders can be communicated and managed effectively. The paper is based on the research related to the project PROT̎ (Development of advanced technology for environmental protection and incorporation of this knowledge into new tools for better-integrated water management in the catchment scale) and the EUREKA project STORAGE (Sustainable TOols for gRoundwater manAGEment optimisation and water

Optimizing the capacity to adapt to climate change impacts has become a critical challenge for human societies. This article therefore evaluates how integrated water resource management (IWRM) approaches help enhance adaptive capacity to climate change impacts on water resources. An evaluative framework is derived from key IWRM principles and their roles in modulating adaptive capacity. This framework is then used to evaluate IWRM implementation in Bangladesh. The analysis draws on policy documents, interviews and a survey of policy makers. Results suggest that policy principles and implementation in favour of IWRM can be a source of success but also of failure for adaptive capacity. Recommendations for amending the concept with the aim of increasing adaptive capacity are outlined.

Scarcity of good quality water has led many countries to introduce demand-based water management in the irrigated agriculture section in place of the existing supply-based water management. This transition requires institutional changes, including the formation of Water User Associations (WUAs). The paper reviews the constraints of irrigated agriculture in Pakistan and discusses the conditions for success in the formation of farmers’ organizations. This paper seeks to show that the development of WUAs is a vital step in the development of integrated water resource management. It is argued that IWRM is a prerequisite for a sustainable society in water-dependent countries that are increasingly water-scarce—like the paternalistic and bureaucratic societies of South Asia.

Degradation of watersheds and diminishing water resources lead to unsustainable environmental and socio- economic development. The hydrological characteristics are desirable for sustainable water resource exploitation. Hydrological and water resources research were examined in three case watersheds in Kenya leading to the need for integrated water resources management, environmental conservation, and watershed management plans as a result of the major challenges of climate change and variability and uncoordinated watershed resource utilization. Well-managed hydro-meteorological networks at different scales of hydrological systems have been proposed to assess potential for optimal resource use and harmony involving all stakeholders for reduced water stress and future water conflicts. Updates of information and methodologies for watershed management that emphasize collaborative efforts and use of sustainable best practices would require input of various stakeholders including Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA), Basin Authorities, and National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA).

"Water is both a key and limited resource in the Okavango Catchment of Southern Africa. It is vital for the ecosystem and the three riparian states Angola, Botswana and Namibia who use the water of the catchment for multiple purposes including pastoralism, farming and tourism. Socioeconomic changes, primarily strong population growth and increasing development demands pose significant challenges for the Okavango Catchment and its Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). In this paper, we first review the socioeconomic background and the current and projected water situation. Against this background, we analyze the dependence of the riparian states and the local livelihoods on the Okavango Catchment. Third, we discuss the implications of socioeconomic changes and increased water demand for the IWRM in the catchment. We review the scientific literature and relevant reports. Further we utilize (geo-spatial) analysis of socioeconomic, livelihood and hydrological data, supplemented by a field visit to Namibia and Botswana. Our findings suggest that strong population growth and the stabilization of Angola are likely to increase the pressure to develop the region along the Okavango. The central challenge for IWRM is hence to enable Angola to meet its development needs without limiting livelihood and economic prospects in Botswana and Namibia."

Reducing diffuse pollution is a perpetuating problem for environmental regulators. This paper will consider novel ways to regulate its impacts on the aquatic environment, with particular reference to rural landuse. It will look at the relationship between science, policy and law, and the contributions of integrated water resources management and governance at regional, national and river basin scales. Regulatory frameworks for water in the European Union will be explored, along with their implementation nationally in Scotland and at catchment scale in the Tweed river basin. It will conclude that regulation has a role to play, but that it is necessary to take a visionary holistic and integrated approach, nesting regulation within a governance framework that involves all stakeholders and takes full account of developing science and socio-economic drivers to meet environmental objectives.

This paper provides an assessment of the implementation of principles of integrated water resource management (IWRM) in the Inkomati River Basin (IRB), shared by South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique. A methodology with a set of principles, change areas and measures was developed as a performance assessment tool. The tool was piloted in the IRB and results from the application were used to refine and finalise the tool. Piloting of the tool did provide very useful insights into IWRM implementation in the IRB and highlighted gaps where future attention needs to focus. Good progress has been realised with respect to creating the enabling environment and institutional frameworks as the key principles of IWRM have been successfully articulated in policy and legislation and a relatively satisfactory degree of stakeholder participation achieved. Measures related to the IWRM implementation instruments seem to be the least developed, particularly the financial enabling environment and institutional capacity building change areas. More attention also needs to be paid to conflict resolution mechanisms. The results from the pilot also showed that countries should consider a phased approach to assessment of IWRM, as implementation does seem to follow a process of creating the enabling environment, followed by formulating and implementing the institutional framework and creation and application of IWRM management instruments.Keywords: Integrated water resource management, Inkomati River Basin, South Africa, Swaziland