This document provides an overview of water resource management in a changing world. It discusses key topics like climate change, land use change, groundwater depletion, and increasing urbanization. It then focuses on integrated water resource management (IWRM) and integrated catchment management (ICM), which promote coordination between different sectors involved in water resources through a participatory approach. IWRM aims to maximize social and economic benefits from water resources equitably and sustainably. The document outlines eight instruments to implement IWRM, including water assessments, demand management, and economic incentives. Finally, it discusses how hydrology is impacted by changes in land use and vegetation cover.
This document provides an overview of water resource management in a changing world. It discusses key topics like climate change, land use change, groundwater depletion, and increasing urbanization. It then focuses on integrated water resource management (IWRM) and integrated catchment management (ICM), which promote coordination between different sectors involved in water resources through a participatory approach. IWRM aims to maximize social and economic benefits from water resources equitably and sustainably. The document outlines eight instruments to implement IWRM, including water assessments, demand management, and economic incentives. Finally, it discusses how hydrology is impacted by changes in land use and vegetation cover.
This document provides an overview of water resource management in a changing world. It discusses key topics like climate change, land use change, groundwater depletion, and increasing urbanization. It then focuses on integrated water resource management (IWRM) and integrated catchment management (ICM), which promote coordination between different sectors involved in water resources through a participatory approach. IWRM aims to maximize social and economic benefits from water resources equitably and sustainably. The document outlines eight instruments to implement IWRM, including water assessments, demand management, and economic incentives. Finally, it discusses how hydrology is impacted by changes in land use and vegetation cover.
This document provides an overview of water resource management in a changing world. It discusses key topics like climate change, land use change, groundwater depletion, and increasing urbanization. It then focuses on integrated water resource management (IWRM) and integrated catchment management (ICM), which promote coordination between different sectors involved in water resources through a participatory approach. IWRM aims to maximize social and economic benefits from water resources equitably and sustainably. The document outlines eight instruments to implement IWRM, including water assessments, demand management, and economic incentives. Finally, it discusses how hydrology is impacted by changes in land use and vegetation cover.
The issue of change explored in water resource management context is: How we respond to changes in patterns of consumption; Increasing population pressure and possible changes in climate. The topics do reflect some of the major concerns; it is meant as an introduction to issues of change and how they affect hydrology. The first broad topic of discussion is water resource management, particularly at the local scale. The second topic is the one that dominates the research literature in natural sciences at present: climate change. The third and fourth topics are concerned with the way we treat our environment and the effect this has on water resources: land use change and groundwater depletion. The final topic urban hydrology–is of great concern, with an ever increasing urban population all around the world.
WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
It is concerned with all aspects of the hydrological cycle or only with those of direct concern to humans, particularly water consumption? As soon as the term ‘resource’ is introduced then it automatically implies a human dimension. Water is a resource because we need it, and there are ways that we can manipulate its provision, therefore water resource management is a very real proposition. Management of the water environment needs to be designed to maintain and enhance amenity values. Equally we have an obligation to protect the water environment for future generations and for other species that co-exist with the water. Therefore water resource management needs to embrace sustainable development in its good practices. It is clear that water resource management has to embrace all of these issues and at the same time adapt to changing views on what is required of water management. A key part involves water allocation: the amount of water made available to users, including both out of stream users (e.g. irrigation, town water supply) and in stream environmental use (e.g. amenity values, supporting aquatic populations).
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Water allocation in a resource management context is about how to ensure fair and equitable distribution of the water resource between groups of stakeholders. A key part is also the involvement of many different sectors of the community in decision-making. This has lead to a different approach to water management that stresses integration between different sectors. There are two key concepts in this area: Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and Integrated Catchment Management (ICM).
INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (IWRM)
The concepts behind IWRM lie in the so-called ‘Dublin Principles’ (January 1992). The conference adopted what has been termed ‘the Dublin Statement’ which was taken forward to the Earth Summit Conference in Rio de Janiero later that year. The Dublin Statement established four guiding principles for managing freshwater resources, namely: 1) Fresh water 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. These four principles underlie IWRM, especially the concepts of a participatory approach and that water has an economic value (Solanes, 1998). An economic good, as used in principle four, is defined in economics as: a physical object or service that has value to people and can be sold for a non-negative price in the marketplace. A major implication from principle four is that water is not a gift or a free right to any water user, it needs to be recognized that using water restricts the usage by others and therefore there is a cost involved in the action. The Global Water Partnership (www.gwpforum. org) is a leading agency in promoting IWRM. It defines IWRM as: 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, (GWP, Technical Advisory Committee, 2004) The emphasis within an IWRM approach to water management is on integration between sectors involved in water resources, including local communities (a participatory approach). Although this is promoted as a new approach to resource management it is in many ways a return to traditional values with recognition of the interconnectedness of hydrology, ecology and land
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management. If there is a large amount of water from a stream allocated to agriculture then there is less available for town water supply and instream ecology. IWRM is a framework for change that recognizes this interconnectedness and builds structures to manage water with this in mind. It is an attempt to move away from structures that promote individual sectors competing against each other for the scarce resource of water and moves towards joint ownership of water resource management.
EIGHT IWRM INSTRUMENTS FOR CHANGE AS PROMOTED BY (GWP (2004)
a) Water resources assessment
Understanding what water resources are available and the water needs of communities. Requires measurements of flows, groundwater levels, etc. and water usage (e.g. metering of take). b) IWRM plans Combining development options, resource use and human interaction requires inter-sectoral approach. c) Demand management Using water more efficiently requires knowledge of where water losses occur (leakage) and plans on how to promote water efficiency. d) Social change instruments Encouraging a water-oriented society requires community education on the importance of using water wisely. e) Conflict resolution Managing disputes, ensuring sharing of water requires promotion of trust between sectors and robust dispute settlement systems. f) Regulatory instruments Allocation and water use limits, requires good knowledge about the amount of available resource and how the hydrological system responds to stress (either natural or human-induced). g) Economic instruments Using value and prices for efficiency and equity requires good information on water usage and overall water demand. h) Information management and exchange Improving knowledge for better water management requires good data-sharing principles (e.g. between flood control and water supply agencies).
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INTEGRATED CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT (ICM)
Integrated Catchment Management (also sometimes referred to as Integrated Water Basin Management, IWBM) is essentially a subset of IWRM. It aims to promote an integrated approach to water and land management but with two subtle differences: 1) ICM recognizes the catchment (or river basin) as the appropriate organizing unit for understanding and managing water-related biophysical processes in a context that includes social, economic and political considerations; 2) There is recognition of the spatial context of different management actions and in particular the importance of cumulative effect within a catchment. By defining a river catchment as the appropriate organizing unit for managing biophysical processes there is a recognition that hydrological pathways are important and these provide an appropriate management, as well as biophysical, boundary. Fenemor et al. (2006) have defined the word ‘integrated’ in an ICM context using three different connotations: • Integration between the local community, science and policy so that the community is linked into the planning and execution of both science and policy and scientific research is being carried out in an environment close-linked into policy requirements and vice versa. • Integration between different scientific and technical disciplines to tackle multi-dimensional problems; • Spatial integration throughout a watershed so that the cumulative impact of different actions can be assessed. One of the key principles of ICM and IWRM is community involvement through a participatory approach: making sure that everybody can be involved in resource management, not just a few elite within a single organization. Another key principle of ICM and IWRM is the idea of change.
HYDROLOGY AND CHANGE
These are the types of challenges facing water resource management in an ever-changing world. The following section outlines some of the changes possible and uses case studies to demonstrate the possible effects of those changes.
CHANGE IN LAND USE
The implications of land use change for hydrology has been an area of intense interest to research hydrologists over the last fifty or more years.
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Issues of land use change affecting hydrology include increasing urbanization, changing vegetation cover, land drainage and changing agricultural practices leading to salination.
VEGETATION CHANGE This is a hydrological impact of vegetation cover change, a subject that Bosch and Hewlett (1982) review in considerable depth. They conclude that the greater the amount of deforestation the larger the subsequent streamflows will be, but the actual amount is dependent on the vegetation type and precipitation amount.
LAND DRAINAGE Land drainage is a common agricultural ‘improvement’ technique in areas of high rainfall and poor natural drainage. In an area such as the Fens of Cambridge shire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire in England this has taken the form of drains or canals and an elaborate pumping system, so that the natural wetlands have been drained completely. The result of this has been the utilization of the area for intensive agricultural production. At the smaller scale, land drainage may be undertaken by farmers to improve the drainage of soils. This is a common practice throughout temperate regions and allows soils to remain relatively dry during the winter and early spring. The most common method of achieving this is through a series of tile drains laid across a field that drain directly into a water course (often a ditch). Traditionally tile drains were clay pipes that allowed water to drain into them through the strong hydraulic gradient created by their easy drainage towards the ditch. Modern tile drains are plastic pipes with many small holes to allow water into them. Tile drains are normally laid at about 60 cm depth and should last for at least fifty years or more. The aim of tile and mole drainage is to hold less water in a soil. This may have two effects on the overall hydrology. It allows rapid drainage from the field, therefore increasing the flashy response (i.e. rapid rise and fall of hydrograph limbs) in a river. At the same time the lack of soil moisture may lead to greater infiltration levels and hence less overland flow.
SALINATION Salination is an agricultural production problem that results from a buildup of salt compounds in the surface soil. Water flowing down a river is almost never ‘pure’; it will contain dissolved solids in the form of salt compounds. These salt compounds are derived from natural sources such as the weathering of
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surface minerals and sea spray contained in rainfall. When water evaporates the salts are left behind, examples are salt lakes such as in Utah, central Australia, and the Dead Sea in the Middle East. The same process leads to salinity in the oceans. Salination of soils occurs when there is an excess of salt rich water that can be evaporated from a soil. The classic situation for this is where river-fed irrigation water is used to boost agricultural production in a hot, dry climate. The evapotranspiration of salt rich irrigation water leads to salt compounds accumulating in the soil, which in turn may lead to a loss of agricultural production as many plants fail to thrive in a salt-rich environment.
GROUNDWATER DEPLETION In many parts of the world there is heavy reliance on aquifers for provision of water to a population. Not all groundwater is recharged so readily. Many aquifers have built up their water reserves over millions of years and receive very little infiltrating rainfall on a year by year basis. The use of this water at high rates may lead to groundwater depletion, a serious long-term problem for water management.
URBANIZATION The continuing rise in urban population around the world makes it an important issue to consider under the title of change. There is no question that urban expansion has a significant effect on the hydrology of any river draining the area. Initially this may be due to climate alterations affecting parts of the hydrological cycle. The most obvious hydrological impact is on the runoff hydrology, but other areas where urbanization may have an impact are point source and diffuse pollution affecting water quality, river channelization to control flooding, increased snow melt from urban areas and river flow changes from sewage treatment.
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