The USAID Response to the Global Water Crisis
Central to the global water crisis are the increasing human demands and impacts placed on this finite resource. A world population now growing by 80 million people each year (nearly the size of Mexico) drives this collision between supply and demand. To provide food for the expanding population, irrigated agriculture has been developed during the past three decades to an unprecedented degree and now consumes close to 70% of total water used by humans worldwide. Industry and commerce sectors demand almost another 25%, leaving a less than 10% of total water supply for domestic use. There are wide regional differences in these proportions, but on a global scale, water demand is doubling approximately every 20 years.
In the face of such scarcity and degraded quality around the world, approaches to management often focus exclusively on the needs of a single sector, or a reduced geographic area, and emphasize the development of new supplies as the primary management approach. This has led to an over-commitment of finite supplies, conflicts and tensions between upstream and downstream users, an under-emphasis on pollution prevention and demand-side strategies, and serious unanticipated consequences for ecosystems that depend on a minimum flow of freshwater. In sum, a fragmented approach has worsened unsustainable patterns of use in many places.
In response, water managers around the world have developed a more integrated philosophy of resources management that addresses issues of water quantity and quality at the basin scale. This is referred to as integrated water resources management (IWRM). IWRM is a process that employs sound scientific information about major water quality and quantity trends to make decisions about sustainable water allocation and use, including a thorough understanding of the supply/demand equation (the “water budget”) and analysis of ecosystem needs, as well as water use patterns by all stakeholders within a basin.
Representative and democratic governance processes combine with solid information to produce management schemes that ensure the long-erm health and welfare of human communities and ecosystems alike. IWRM employs a range of approaches, methods, and tools addressing policies, laws, and regulations, as well as the technical and financial solutions needed to bring about concerted community participation and stewardship of water and coastal resources at the river basin or watershed scale.
Many of USAID’s water and coastal resources management programs embody the global consensus that an integrated approach is essential to successful water resources management. An integrated approach ensures that scarce resources are allocated equitably and sustainably among the diverse array of users and stakeholders involved. In this way, stakeholders take part in management of the resource, increasing the likelihood that key sustainability strategies, technologies, and decision-making processes are accepted and maintained over the long term. USAID also promotes an integrated approach at the landscape scale, recognizing that both upstream and downstream activities within a river basin or watershed are integrally linked via ecosystem processes.
Learn more about USAID’s investments in global water resources management.
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