Better water management will be crucial if we are to meet many of the key challenges of this century - feeding the worlds growing population and reducing poverty, meeting water and sanitation needs, protecting vital ecosystems, all while adapting to climate change. The approach known as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is widely recognized as the best way forward, but is poorly understood, even within the water sector. Since a core IWRM principle is that good water management must involve the water users, the understanding and involvement of other sectors is critical for success. There is thus an urgent need for practical guidance, for both water and development professionals, based on real world examples, rather than theoretical constructs. That is what this book provides. Using case studies, the book illustrates how better water management, guided by the IWRM approach, has helped to meet a wide range of sustainable development goals. It does this by considering practical examples, looking at how IWRM has contributed, at different scales, from very local, village-level experiences to reforms at national level and beyond to cases involving trans-boundary river basins. Using these on-the-ground experiences, from both developed and developing countries in five continents, the book provides candid and practical lessons for policy-makers, donors, and water and development practitioners worldwide, looking at how IWRM principles were applied, what worked, and, equally important, what didn‘t work, and why. Published with the Global Water Partnership

This open access textbook provides a concise introduction to economic approaches and mathematical methods for the study of water allocation and distribution problems. Written in an accessible and straightforward style, it discusses and analyzes central issues in integrated water resource management, water tariffs, water markets, and transboundary water management. By illustrating the interplay between the hydrological cycle and the rules and institutions that govern today’s water allocation policies, the authors develop a modern perspective on water management. Moreover, the book presents an in-depth assessment of the political and ethical dimensions of water management and its institutional embeddedness, by discussing distribution issues and issues of the enforceability of human rights in managing water resources. Given its scope, the book will appeal to advanced undergraduate and graduate students of economics and engineering, as well as practitioners in the water sector, seeking a deeper understanding of economic approaches to the study of water management.

This book develops an analytical framework for water law reform, using case studies across four jurisdictions, for academics, students and policy makers.

There are four papers focusing on the special recent experience of South Africa, as it replaces former inequitable water laws with a new one tq reflect its major pOlitical reorientation, and at the same time takes this opportunity of change to bring in several other principles of modern thinking about water, with a focus on participation by stakeholders, on the river-basin as management unit, on financial principles such as "users pay" and "polluters pay;' and on the potential role of access to water in addressing social issues such as poverty and gender discrimination. Conflict / Social aspects / Gender / Water law / Institutional constraints / Financing / Investment / Water scarcity / Water users' associations / Privatization / User charges / Water allocation / Political aspects / Water use efficiency / Water policy / Developing countries / Agricultural development / Poverty / Watercourses / River basins / Water management