CHAPTER TWO

PRINCIPLES OF IWRM
Contents
• Principles of IWRM
• Water resources systems
• Sustainability of water resources
• Types of sustainability
• Methods for measuring water resources sustainability
Objective
• At the end of the chapter, students will:
• Be able to describe the main principles of IWRM,
• Understand the characteristics of sustainable water resources systems.
Principles of IWRM
• Two most commonly referred guiding principles are:
• The Dublin Statement; and
• The Rio Declaration.
The four Dublin guiding principles
• Freshwater is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life,
development and the environment.
• Since water sustains life, effective management of water resources
demands a holistic approach:
• Linking social and economic development with protection of natural ecosystems;
• Resource yield has natural limits;
• Upstream – downstream user relations; and
• Holistic institutional approach.
Principles of IWRM
• Water development and management should be based on a participatory
approach, involving users, planners and policymakers at all levels
• The participatory approach involves:
• Raising the awareness of the importance of water among policy makers and the
general public;
• It means that decisions are taken at the lowest appropriate level, with full public
consultation and involvement of users in the planning and implementation of water
resources projects.
• Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of
water.
• Involvement of women in decision making;
• Women as water users;
• IWRM requires gender awareness.
Principles of IWRM
• Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be
recognized as an economic good.
• Past failure to recognize the economic value (versus social value) of water
has led to wasteful and environmentally damaging uses of the resource
• Managing water demand through economic instruments (implementing
affordable price, cost recovery) is an important way of:
• Achieving efficient and equitable use; and
• Encouraging conservation and protection of water resources.
Principles of IWRM
The Rio declaration
• Two important sections concerning IWRM:
• Water as an integral part of the ecosystem, a natural resource, and a
social and economic good, whose quantity and quality determine the
nature of its utilization;
• Integration of land and water related issues at various levels: local,
sub-basin or basin.
Summary of key IWRM principles
• Water source and catchment conservation and protection are essential.
• Water allocation should be agreed to between stakeholders within a national
framework
• Management needs to be taken care of at the lowest appropriate level.
• Capacity building is the key to sustainability.
• Involvement of all stakeholders is required.
• Efficient water use is essential and often an important “source” in itself.
• Water should be treated as having an economic and social value.
• Striking a gender balance is essential.
Water Resources Systems
• Water resources systems can be defined as a set of water resources elements
linked by interrelationships into a purposeful whole. In many respects, water
resources systems defy rational description.
• To an engineer, these systems may be dams and weirs, tunnels, levees,
pipelines, electrical power plants, water treatment and reclamation, spillways
and similar physical works which have been constructed to provide certain
benefits.
• An economist views them from the point of view of economic efficiency,
income redistribution and stimulation of economic growth.
• To a lawyer, a water resources system is a device for the implementation of
water rights.
Water Resources Systems
• To those living in an arid environment, water resources systems mean food and
fiber, homes and jobs, laws and politics.
• To many conservationists, water resources systems are unwanted interventions,
responsible for the destruction of wild rivers, scenic beauty and wildlife habitat.
• Water resources systems indeed include all these points of views which could be
physical, technological, sociological, biological, legal, geological and
agricultural.
• The elements of a water resources system can be either natural (rivers, lakes,
glaciers, etc.) or artificial (reservoirs, barrages, weirs, canals, hydroelectric
power plants, etc.).
• The relationships between the elements are either real (e.g., water diversion) or
conceptual (e.g., organisation, information, etc.).
Water Resources Systems
• Water resources management involves influencing
and improving the interaction of three
interdependent subsystems:
• The natural river subsystem in which the
physical, chemical and biological processes
take place
• The socio-economic subsystem, which includes
the human activities related to the use of the
natural river system
• The administrative and institutional subsystem
of administration, legislation and regulation,
where the decision and planning and
Figure 1: Interactions among
management processes take place.
subsystems and between them and
their environment.
Sustainability of Water Resources
• Sustainable development is defined as:
• “Development that meets the needs of the present generation without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
(WCED, 1987)
• Sustainable water resource systems are those designed and managed to fully
contribute to the objectives of society, now and in the future, while
maintaining their ecological, environmental and hydrological integrity.
(ASCE, 1998)
• Sustainable development is making efficient use of our natural resources for
economic and social development while maintaining the resource base and
environmental carrying capacity for coming generations.
Types of Sustainability
Physical sustainability
• Closing the resource cycles and considering the cycles in their integrity (water and nutrient
cycles).
• In agriculture this implies primarily closing or shortening water and nutrient cycles so
as to prevent accumulation or depletion of land and water resources:
• Water depletion results in desertification and water accumulation into waterlogging.
• Nutrient depletion leads to loss of fertility, loss of water holding capacity, and in
general, reduction of carrying capacity and nutrient accumulation results in
eutrophication and pollution.
• Closing or shortening these cycles means restoring the dynamic equilibriums at the
appropriate temporal and spatial scales. The latter is relevant, since at a global scale all
cycles close.
Types of Sustainability
Economic sustainability
• Economic sustainability relates to the efficiency of the system.
• If all societal costs and benefits are properly accounted for, and cycles are
closed, then economic sustainability implies a reduction of scale by short-
cutting the cycles. Efficiency dictates that cycles should be kept as short as
possible.
• Examples of short cycles are:
• Water conservation, to make optimum use of rainfall where it falls (and not
drain it off and capture it downstream to pump it up again)
• Water recycling at the spot instead of draining it off to a treatment plant
after which it is conveyed or pumped back over considerable distances etc.
Types of Sustainability
Institutional sustainability
• In order to ensure sustainability, the right decisions have to be made.
• This requires that the relevant institutions are in place which can facilitate the
proper decision processes. Moreover, institutions need to adequately respond
to changing requirements and a changing environment in which they operate.
• They should have the capacity to adapt to emerging circumstances. Their
adaptive capacities indicate whether they will prove to be sustainable
institutions.
• A sustainable system is active and able to maintain its structure (organization),
function (vigor) and autonomy over time and is resilient in stress.
How is Water Resources Sustainability Measured?
• Water management policies that promote sustainable water resources systems
are becoming more difficult to identify because of environmental
considerations, water scarcity, and climate change.
• Recently, strong emphasis has been placed on the adaptive capacity of water
resource systems, which refers to measures that reduce the vulnerability of
systems to actual or expected future changes.
• Vulnerability is the magnitude of an adverse impact on a system.
• There should be policies that reduce the adverse impacts of actual and
expected events, and to the extent possible, meet the water requirements for
humans and the environment, now and in the future.
How is Water Resources Sustainability Measured?
• To accomplish this goal, it is necessary to have performance measures or
indexes that allow the evaluation and comparison of water resources systems
under different scenarios.
• The sustainability index (SI) summarizes the performance of alternative
policies from the perspective of water users and the environment; it is also a
measure of a system’s adaptive capacity to reduce its vulnerability.
• The SI is an integration of performance criteria that capture the essential and
desired sustainable characteristics of the basin.
How is Water Resources Sustainability Measured?
Performance Criteria
• Performance criteria are used to evaluate water management policies and
enable the comparison of alternative policies.
• Probability based performance criteria include:
• Reliability- probability that the available water supply meets the water
demand during the period of simulation
• Resilience- a system’s capacity to adapt to changing conditions.
• Vulnerability- the likely value of deficits, if they occur. Essentially,
vulnerability expresses the severity of failures.