Integrated Water Resource Management and Water Sharing

Water reforms in Brazil: opportunities and constraints

“…Brazil and influenced the emerging regulation is the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM), which is defined by Davis (2007) as "a facilitated stakeholder process to promote coordinated activities in pursuit of common goals for multiple objective development and management of water founded in sustainable water resource systems" (see also Global Water Partnership, 2003). To a large extent, the IWRM doctrine provided the conceptual and methodological rationale for the new public policies and regulatory instruments that are now being applied to the solution of water problems in Brazil.…”

People Work to Sustain Systems: A Framework for Understanding Sustainability

“…This conception of IWRM is often described as being an essential part of sustainable development along the lines of the Brundtland Report, such as in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) criteria for sustainability of water resources systems as enabling social goals while preserving the integrity of the water resource systems into the foreseeable future (ASCE and UNESCO 1998). IWRM has also been seen as a way of better integrating the three aspects of the triple model of sustainability, by addressing the bias toward economic sustainability and better acknowledging the importance and interdependence of social and environmental sustainability questions (e.g., Davis 2007). IWRM pursues these goals of integration and sustainable development with an explicit commitment to social justice, including just distribution of benefits, risks, and harms, and just participation by affected stakeholders (Agrawal et al 2000 It is useful to briefly examine an example of IWRM in practice before placing it in relation to our framework for sustainability.…”

“…To that end, the CWP has recently called for local water plans and measurements of sustainability throughout California, to better integrate local stakeholders (Shilling et al 2011). As Davis (2007) points out, though the CWP is a powerful model of IWRM, California still suffers serious water unsustainability despite this plan attributable to powerful actors, legacies from previous practices, and environmental problems, and perhaps because of the United States' larger orientation of "net economic development as the primary objective, while complying with the established environmental laws" (p. 441).…”

“…Again, this tension can be considered as arising from external social sustainability constraints or justicebased constraints. As IWRM researchers have pointed out, any IWRM program must demonstrate that it can benefit people, and that those negatively affected by the new system will have their concerns addressed and perhaps their losses compensated (e.g., Ballweber 2006;Davis 2007;Howe 2005). Here though, IWRM must be realistic about the social possibility of different ways of organizing society.…”

Guidelines for the adaptation to floods in changing climate

“…It requires an application of the concept of integrated water resource management (IWRM). The framework of IWRM (Davis 2007) consists of development and management of water, land and related resources, to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of the environment. The basic idea behind the flood risk management, being a part of IWRM is to plan adaptation actions leading to the minimisation of flood risk in future climate conditions.…”