Integrated water resources management

Abstract

The global action plan, Action 21, adopted at the United Nations Conference on the environment and development, in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, laid down the principle of integrated water resources management. On the one hand, freshwater should be managed on a global basis, as a limited resource, in close association with the satisfactory operation of water ecosystems and, on the other hand, this management should be better integrated within the framework of economic and social policies, mobilising all institutional, legal, educational and economic means necessary. The main concern is to arrive at a good balance between the knowledge of the operation of the water system, of which the integrity should be preserved, and the intervention of the various water resource users, whose action should be co-ordinated, bearing in mind the common interest, by democratic, open decision making procedures. To preserve the integrity of water systems, it is necessary to identify correctly the functional units within which it is possible to determine clearly the main phenomena affecting the perpetuation of an ecosystem and for which it is possible to define operational management measures. To develop balanced water resources management, best suited to meeting all requirements and uses, it is useful to consider the procedure introduced in France through the Water agencies and Basin Committees, with the new aims associated with setting up water improvement and management plans. An effort should be made to optimise the management of the large amount of information required to represent complex space and time dependent systems and interrelate them with many different users whose interests are often conflicting.