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
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
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