Water management is a foundation upon which safe
drinking water, agriculture, food production, protection from floods and
droughts, energy production, and the sustenance of ecosystem relies.
There are different aspects into water management,
three of which I've put in the diagram below.And as discussed in "what's the big deal?" post, they are influenced by both climatic and non-climatic factors. Good news is that modelling is used in all three of them ! GO MODELLING! well I meant Environmental Modelling...
The Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) has been
defined by GWP (Global Water Partnership) 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."
Well, to be honest that definition to me is
quite vague. So I tried to look into it more from the same source and according
to GWP, the concept challenges the traditional, fragmented water management and
water developments to put emphasis on integrated approach with more coordinated
decision making between different sectors(GWP,2013).
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| source:GWP |
Ok, that’s a bit better.
It turns out that I’m not the only one feeling confused about the definition. According
to an interesting article by Mitchell,Bellete and Richardson (2014) , the concept is not properly
defined and the definition from GWP is not used consistently. Hence, there are multiple
definitions of IWR which cause ambiguity. The paper talks about how distinction should be made between “holistic”
or “comprehensive” and "integrated" approaches. The first two are all-inclusive by definition. So, the
objective is to include and consider all the variables and the links between
them.
Such method of approach
helps to make sure that no significant variable or relationship is overlooked. However,
a disadvantage of an all-inclusive approach may be the fact that it can become
overwhelming in the sense that examining all of the interconnections may not be
possible. However, an integrated approach supports the importance of understanding
the interconnections between different variables, but puts focus only on those
that are key players for change and susceptible to being managed.
So some points to keep in
mind about IWRM and IWM:
- For IWRM to be a useful approach, it is crucial to have a better, more precise definition as the word “integration” does not have a common definition(Mitchell,Bellete and Richardson ,2014). Furthermore, it is important that the definition is consistently used throughout practices.
- IWM can successfully be achieved with high level of participation and cooperation between providers of water, protectors of water , and users of water (CIWEM,2011).
- One of the main advantages and main motivations for Integrated management approach is to overcome and prevent the “silo effect”- when different agencies and sectors only focus on their own interests and responsibilities!
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| Silo effect-source: |
Having said all of
this, it should be acknowledged that water management is never “solved” and
that it is an ongoing process (CIWEM,2011).
Adios,
Hi Honeyeh! I wonder if you could expand a little on... "For IWRM to be a useful approach, it is crucial to have a better, more precise definition as the word “integration” does not have a common definition". Not knowing anything about IWRM (until reading your post!) how do you think a more precise definition of 'integration' is going to make the approach more useful?
ReplyDeleteHi Alana!
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that there are multiple definition of this approach in the literature shows that GWP's definition has some level of ambiguity specially regarding the focus and the scope of the approach. The paper that I mentioned in my post was saying that "integrated" could get mixed up with "holistic" and "comprehensive" approaches , if the definition does not elaborate on what the ultimate goal is and how it can be achieved. The paper states that an integrated approach is more focused and pays primary attention to key drier of change that can be changed, which is in contrast to a holistic approach. other definition of the approach exist that are more explanatory for example they say how different sectors should communicate with each other and achieve a joint goal, share resources and risks,etc. i think that because of the large scale of this approach , a more elaborate, guided definition would be more helpful , also prevents so many different interpretations :)
Another challenge -not related to definition- is how different policies don’t match up. Even if different sectors come together and used the correct definition of the approach , they might still not be able to completely implement it!
I hope that helped:)