Why Water Resources Assessment? (1) For better management

As the only person in the year studying the topic of water resources assessment (WRA), I feel I have the responsibility to convince everyone why this topic is so vital, if not, probably the most fundamental aspect of all hydrological studies and management. Personally, I think there are three reasons for this:

• The rise of integrated water resource management (IWRM)
• Economic benefits of WRA
• Variability of water resources (particularly in Africa)

In this post, I will address the first reason.

The concept of managing water resources in an integrated manner has always been observed. For example, in the 20^th century, Spain already pioneered in managing its water resources based on the delineation of watershed. It also allowed multiple stakeholders to participate in its management. Since then, similar actions have also been taken in countries such as the USA and Germany.

Although relatively absent from the political agenda until the 1990s, the idea of sustainable exploitation and management of water resources became increasingly popular later on in the world due to the collective effort of several international organisation and conferences. For example, the Second World Water Forum and Ministerial Conference addressed the issue of water resources inequality by including more than 5700 participants (including all kinds of stakeholders, not just ‘experts’) in its discussion of water resources management. The World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002 advocated for all nations to develop IWRM and become more water efficient.

IWRM have evolved from its earlier stage where there was limited cooperation between different sectors in the 1950s to the management-oriented phase in the 1980s and now the goal-oriented phase. The current phase recognises the importance of interactions between various aspects (e.g. social, economic, groundwater, geology, hydrology etc. See Fig1&2) and requires the goal of the IWRM plan to be laid out clearly at the start of the planning process. Water resources must be managed in ways that meet the needs of present and future population as well as the expectations of many different sectors through a consensus-based approach.

Figure1. An integrative approach to water resource and watershed management.

Figure2. A visual representation of IWRM.

Since so many people are involved in such a process, it is vital that it is done fairly and uses legitimate, reliable, and accurate data. This is where water resources assessment come in. Through coordinating data and information from different sectors (e.g. agriculture, forestry, water supply, and environment), regions or even countries, it avoids conflicting information being produced. According to the technical material for water resources assessment, without proper water resources assessment, it could ‘undermine the importance of credibility of the work of the National Hydrological Services.’ Water resources assessments ensure that the information and analysis produced are robust and can be trusted by various stakeholders with potentially conflicting motives. That way the recommendations made by the water resources managers are more likely to be enforced smoothly.

Further, with good quality analysis, we may then have a good understanding of the complexity of hydrological system and how much water can realistically be allocated to different sectors and stakeholders. This fundamental idea is reinforced particularly by conferences such as the World Water Forum throughout the last 30 years.

In short, due to the rise of IWRM and its associated attempt to manage water resources in a more fair, sustainable and efficient manner, water resources assessment become a must.