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Why and What is Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)?
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Water is important for survival, health and quality of life, and is implicit in life expectancy rates, hunger and malnutrition levels, poverty rates, employment migration, urbanisation rates, and flood displacement. Water impacts many different areas of everyday life and the result of poor water management can have many different effects, such as reducing children’s ability to go to school.
There is general consensus that the only way to bridge the gap between the demands for agricultural, domestic, and industrial water is through effective water resources management. The general approach to water resources management has in the past been sub-sectoral, focussing on issues such as water supply, sanitation, irrigation, coastal protection, wastewater disposal, and groundwater management as separate entities.
The multiple nature of water resources and their uses needs to be reflected in a move away from traditional sector approaches to what has become known as integrated water resources management (IWRM). At its most complex level IWRM involves cohesive decision-making concerning the development and management of water resources for various uses, with all decisions made and agreed upon by all relevant stakeholders.
IWRM is a relatively new approach in the Pacific Islands. Yet, the concept and approaches it embodies; the need to take a holistic approach to ensure the socio-cultural, technical, economic and environmental factors are taken into account in the equitable development and management of water resources - has been practised at a traditional level for centuries in the Pacific Island Countries.
The notion that all activities affect each other, given the very small landmasses involved in the Pacific, is well understood by people living in the islands. The concept of competing land pressures, the choice of whether to use precious land for agriculture, water reserves, a school or recreation area, are appreciated at the household, village and wider community level. In particular, every coastal village community understands the connection between activities on the land and in the sea, as they impact on freshwater, fishing stocks and coral reefs. Pacific Island Countries are especially vulnerable to cyclone and drought events. The small size of the catchments, shallow aquifers and lack of natural storage affects all water users from urban and rural water supplies, commercial forestry, subsistence agriculture, and the fisheries/reefs and tourist developments.
The need for both drought and disaster preparedness plans are recognised as national priorities in many Pacific Island Countries. Additional mounting evidence has suggested that pollution on land from inadequate wastewater disposal, increased sediment erosion and industrial discharges are detrimentally impacting coastal water quality and in turn damaging reef ecosystems and fishing stocks which sustain entire island populations. This has led to changing managing practices to not only consider the watersheds and groundwater, but also the receiving coastal waters. Within the Pacific this concept is referred to as water management from Ridge to Reef.
The aim of the regional IWRM programme is to assist Pacific Island Countries to implement effective Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and Water Use Efficiency (
http://www.pacificwaterefficiency.com
) plans based on best practices and demonstrations of IWRM approaches. It will support the implementation of the Pacific Regional Action Plan on Sustainable Water Management (
Pacific RAP) that aims to improve the assessment and monitoring of water resources, reduce water pollution, improve access to technologies, strengthen institutional agreements, and leverage additional financial resources in supporting IWRM.
Extract from the 1st Asia Pacific Water Summit, BEPPU, Japan, 5th December, 2007:
The Pacific Island leaders made the point that the issues were real and solutions were urgent with the deteriorating conditions of the region’s freshwater resources due to impacts of global warming on fragile island eco-systems.
President Tommy Esang Remengesau of Palau reiterated that no matter how large or small a country is its existence and livelihood depend on the availability of freshwater. "We simply cannot count on freshwater literally falling from the sky and solving our water management problems,’’ he said.
"Most of our water comes from groundwater because most of our people don’t have the roofing to catch rainwater. So they cannot store the rainwater," Kiribati’s Tong told IPS in an interview.
"(Our groundwater supply) is impacted by coastal erosion because as the land mass becomes narrower (due to rising sea levels) the ability to retain groundwater will be substantially reduced," he added, explaining how his country of low-lying islands, nine of them narrow atolls in the Pacific ocean, almost had to transport water from overseas recently. ‘’If there is no groundwater and rain does not fall, there is no water," Tong said.
Nauru’s concerns were reported by its President Ludwig Scotty. His country is a frequent host to water shortages due to droughts. While initiatives and strategies to improve water resources management and protection of groundwater are going on, a lot more has to be done, particularly in the area of adaptation to climate change.
The leaders of Tuvalu and Palau used the opportunity to urge the international community to act with a sense of urgency to assist Pacific Island countries find solutions to their pressing environmental problems.
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