Design and Implementation of an Integrated Water Management Approach

The scarcity of water resources in both arid and temperate countries alike is one of the most pervasive natural resource allocation problems facing water users and policy makers. In the EU this has been recognised in the recent work on the Water Framework Directive. In arid countries this problem is faced each day in the myriad of conflicts that surround its use. Water scarcity is a fact with which all countries have to become increasingly involved. Water scarcity occurs across many dimensions. Firstly there is growing demand for water in residential, industrial and agricultural sectors stemming largely from population and economic growth. Secondly, supply side augmentation options have become increasingly constrained, and restrictively costly in many countries. In combination demand growth and supply side interventions have stretched current water availability to its hydrological limits. In addition to these quantity constraints, the limits to the assimilative capacity of water resources for human and industrial waste have been reached in many places, and the quality of freshwater has been degraded (Winpenny, 1994).