Integrated Water Resources Management

Abstract

The need to manage our water resources has become increasingly obvious and urgent. The different but related uses of water—by households, commercial establishments, agriculture, industries, and even for recreational activities—put pressure on our natural water resources to the extent that they threaten the larger environment we and our water resources depend on. The necessity to manage our water resources has given rise to the idea of “Integrated Water Resources Management,” or IWRM. IWRM seeks to reconcile a country’s demand for water resources with the limitations of what those water resources can accommodate. A body of water can only withstand so much extraction and pollution by competing user groups with ever-growing needs (such as factories versus agriculture, or upstream communities versus downstream communities). Today, IWRM is recognized by many countries around the world as a model—the paradigm—for establishing good water governance and putting our water resources on the recovery path.