New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 1 - Fall 2014 | Page 33

New Water Policy and Practice - Volume 1, Number 1 - Fall 2014

Integrated Water Resources Management from Rhetoric
to Practice
Shahbaz KhanA
In this opinion editorial, New Water Policy and Practice International Advisory Board member Prof Shahbaz Khan (Deputy Director UNESCO Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, Jakarta, Indonesia) presents some ideas on how to move Integrated Water Resource Management
(IWRM) from rhetoric to action. Reflecting on IWRM, and on some of the
difficulties experienced in its implementation, Shahbaz discusses some international initiatives which can strengthen IWRM in practice, identifies obstacles to operationalising IWRM principles and proposes some opportunities to facilitate IWRM implementation at the river basin level.
Keywords: IWRM; integrated approaches; sustainable development; river basin management; IHP-HELP

I - Introduction

tect environmental and ecosystem quality.
This is possible only if there is a common
recognition that the sustainable future of
water management should begin with the
conservation and restoration of landscapes
and underlying aquifers which are often
strongly connected to rivers.

Changing complex socio-economic interactions with water, carbon-energy,
food production and climate cycles are putting new pressures on land, water, and associated ecosystems. This requires application
of trans-disciplinary integrated participatory approaches to restore, enhance and protect sustainability of land and water systems.
In recent years there is an increasing emphasis on the integrated approaches to land
and water management e.g. the Integrated
Water Resources Management (IWRM),
Integrated Lakes Management, Landscape
Approach. Such approaches are necessary

W

ater resources management
played a crucial role in the fate
of earliest civilizations and is
continuing to remain a significant link to
sustainable development (Khan et al. 2006).
New global change drivers are intensifying
water, food security and energy inter-linkages thereby creating unprecedented positive and negative impacts which need to be
managed together (UNESCO 2014). Water
also remains a critical resource for human
health, development and prosperity in the
post-2015 development agenda. The challenges posing water management, including
catchment care, provision of regular water
supplies, improved sanitation,