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Principles of Integrated Water Resources Managment

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Principles of Integrated Water Resources Managment
Southern Africa

Southern Africa Youth Forum, 24-25 September 2001, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)
B. Gumbo and P. van der Zaag Department of Civil Engineering, University of Zimbabwe.
Introduction The world’s fresh water resources are under increasing pressure. Growth in population, increased economic activity and improved standards of living lead to increased competition for and conflicts over the limited freshwater resources. A combination of social inequity, economic marginalisation and lack of poverty alleviation programmes also force people living in extreme poverty to overexploit soil and forestry resources, which often results in negative impacts on water resources. Lack of pollution control measures further degrades water resources (GWPTAC4, 2000; Gleick, 1993, Savenije 2000). This calls for a need to find appropriate ways to co-ordinate policy making, planning and implementation in an integrated manner across sectoral, institutional and professional boundaries and to take into account the even more complex coordination issues arising over the management of international watercourses. These attempts have gave birth to a new school of thinking and action to be taken in the water sector termed Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The purpose of this paper is to reiterate at a glance the guiding principles of IWRM with a bias towards Southern Africa for the Global Water Partnership Youth Forum. The paper does not attempt to be exhaustive but gives a brief scenario for digestion during this Forum. Definition of IWRM There is growing awareness that comprehensive water resources management is needed, because: • fresh water resources are limited; • those limited fresh water resources are becoming more and more polluted, rendering them unfit for human consumption and also unfit to sustain the ecosystem; • those limited fresh water resources have to be divided amongst the competing needs and demands in a


References: and bibliography CAPNET, (1999), International Network for Capacity Building in Integrated Water Resources Management. Proposal prepared for GWP-TAC. UNDP, New York Chenje M. and Johnson P. (Eds.), (1996), Water in Southern Africa, SADC/IUCN/SARDC, Maseru/Harare. Engelman R., and LeRoy P., (1993), Sustaining water; Population and the future of renewable water supplies, Population and environment Programme, Population Action international, Washington, USA. Falkenmark, M., (1995), Coping with water scarcity under rapid population growth. Paper presented at the Conference of SADC Water Ministers. Pretoria, 23-24 November 1995 Gleick P., (1999), The Human Right to Water. Water Policy 1(5): 487-503 Gleick P.H. (Ed), (1993), Water in Crisis: Guide to worlds fresh w ater resources, Oxford University press, New York. GWP-TAC4, (2000), Integrated Water Resources management, Global Water Partnership, Technical Advisory Committee Paper No.4, Stockholm, Sweden. Also on the web http://www.gwpforum.org/Tacno4.pdf , Accessed September 2001. ICWE, (1992), The Dublin Statement and Report of the Conference. International conference on water and the environment: development issues for the 21st century; 26-31 January 1992, Dublin Postel S., 1(992), Last oasis, facing water scarcity. W.W. Norton, New York Savenije H.H.G., (2000), Water resources management: concepts and tools. Lecture note. IHE, Delft and University of Zimbabwe, Harare Savenije H.H.G., (2001), Why water is not an ordinary economic good, or why the girl is special, paper to presented in the 2nd WARFSA/WaterNet Symposium: Integrated Water Resources Management: Theory, Practice, Cases, Cape Town, 30-31 October 2001. Savenije, H.H.G., and P. van der Zaag, (2000), Conceptual framework for the management of shared river basins with special reference to the SADC and EU. Water Policy 2 (1-2): 945 Shiklomanov I.A., (1993), World fresh water resources, in Gleick P.H. (Ed) Water in Crisis: Guide to worlds fresh water resources, Oxford University press, New York. UNEP (1997), The fair share water strategy for sustainable development in Africa. UNEP, Nairobi van der Zaag P., (2000), unpublished paper, Concepts and Definitions in Integrated Water Resources Management, Integrated Water Resources Management Southern Africa Region Workshop, Mazvikadei, Zimbabwe, 4-8 December, 2000. van der Zaag P., (2001), Principles of Integrated Water Resources Management, WaterNet module IWRM 0.1, 1st draft; June 2001, IHE Delft & Department of Civil Engineering, University of Zimbabwe WCED, (1987), Our common future. Report of the Brundtland Commission. Oxford University Press, Oxford World Bank, (1993), Water resources management; a World Bank Policy Paper. World Bank, Washington DC Principles of IWRM B. Gumbo and P. van der Zaag 14
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