What is Integrated Water Resources Management?
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Responsible management of rivers and other water sources
helps meet society’s need for water while protecting the
environment. |
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is a participatory planning and implementation process, based on sound science, that brings stakeholders together to determine how to meet society’s long-term needs for water and coastal resources while maintaining essential ecological services and economic benefits. IWRM helps to protect the world’s environment, foster economic growth and sustainable agricultural development, promote democratic participation in governance, and improve human health. Worldwide, water policy and management are beginning to reflect the fundamentally interconnected nature of hydrological resources, and IWRM is emerging as an accepted alternative to the sector-by-sector, top-down management style that has dominated in the past.
Some of the principal components of IWRM:
- Managing water resources at the basin or watershed scale. This includes integrating land and water, upstream and downstream, groundwater, surface water, and coastal resources.
- Optimizing supply. This involves conducting assessments of surface and groundwater supplies, analyzing water balances, adopting wastewater reuse, and evaluating the environmental impacts of distribution and use options.
- Managing demand. This includes adopting cost recovery policies, utilizing water-efficient technologies, and establishing decentralized water management authorities.
- Providing equitable access to water resources through participatory and transparent governance and management. This may include support for effective water users’ associations, involvement of marginalized groups, and consideration of gender issues.
- Establishing improved and integrated policy, regulatory, and institutional frameworks. Examples are implementation of the polluter-pays principle, water quality norms and standards, and market-based regulatory mechanisms.
- Utilizing an intersectoral approach to decision-making, where authority for managing water resources is employed responsibly and stakeholders have a share in the process.
Learn more about USAID’s changing role in global water resources management.
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