SPIS Toolbox - Analyze Water Management and Regulation

ANALYZE WATER MANAGEMENT AND REGULATION

Sustainable groundwater managementand governance is based on the concept of an integrated water resources management (IWRM). The three key pillars of IWRM and sustainability in general are:

• Environmental sustainability – negative impacts such as water deterioration of aquifers and on groundwater dependent ecosystems have to be avoided;
• Economic efficiency - water is an essential good that is required for human consumption and for agricultural and industrial production;
• Social equity – access to safe water resources is essential to all human beings and a human right. Transparent and equal water right systemsallow for equal access.

A sustainable long-term usage of water resources is in the interest of all users, also with regard to the availability of the resources for long lasting investments in the agricultural sector. Hence, all users should have an interest to set up a functioning institutional environment that safeguards water resources and guarantees water security for agricultural irrigation purpose. Essential parts of public administration of water resources are water management planning and water regulation.

 

Water management planning is generally undertaken at a basin level by water ministries or basin organizations. At best, a water management plan integrates the needs from all relevant sectors (drinking water, sanitation, irrigated agriculture, industry, environment), matching the available resources with actual and future demands. Apart from water planning, agricultural authorities (e.g. ministries) may also formulate irrigation development plans that may define priority areas and goals for irrigation development.

Water resource management is the activity of planning, developing, distributing and managing the use of water resources. Sustainable water resource management has regard to all the competing demands for water and seeks to allocate water on an equitable basis to satisfy all uses and demands. Observing the principal of a sustainable yield of aquifers is the foundation for the long-term sustainability of water resources development and use.

Water resource regulation is generally based onnational law and a set of sound rules and institutions that govern the monitoring of its quantitative and qualitative state, use of the resource, preventing overuse and pollution of the resource as well as guaranteeing its fair distribution among different users and interests. In many places, public water authorities on different governmental levels are in charge of the supervision of water resources. Based on water and environmental laws, these authorities regulate water use, e.g. issuing water rights and licenses for wells and water infrastructure. In many countries, also non-state institutions (self-)regulate water use, such as water user associations. These may be based on local customs and traditions about the use and distribution between the owner of the source and its users.

The information compiled in this process step will be the basis for the technical and agronomic design and planning in following modules. If correctly applied, this process step will also reveal opportunities and limits for the envisaged irrigation development at the earliest point in the SPIS development stage.

The process step “Analyze Water Management and Regulation” is interlinked with the following process steps “Analyze Water Extraction” and “Explore Cooperative Water Governance” - all three process steps define the framework in which the SPIS can be developed from the point of view of a sustainable water resource management.

“Analyze Water Management and Regulation” is based on the collection of information, data and salient features of the source, the