Water management

This publication provides an overview of the world’s shared water resources and insights for managing these resources. Using case studies from around the world, it describes the benefits to be gained from cooperation and the challenges of constructing legal frameworks, institutions, management processes and financing and partnership strategies to govern transboundary waters equitably and sustainably.

The practices listed in this catalogue are selected on the basis of their potential capacity to mitigate the foreseeable negative effects of climate change, particularly recurrent droughts, floods, strong winds/sand storms and high temperatures.

This publication brings together case studies, best practices and lessons learned on capacity development aspects of water and the green economy. Contained herein are mainly constributions from UN agencies working together in the inter-agency mechanism known as UN-Water, which look at the characteristics of a green economy and what it will take to accomplish the transition to one with respect to capacity development needs within the water supply and sanitation sector.

Beginning with a grassroots approach to water management, increased knowledge and information and the improvement of environmental health and livelihoods, the region around the Tacaná volcano on the border of Guatemala and Mexico has shown the way forward in scaling up local level approaches to national level initiatives.

In the Volta basin, WANI and partners have worked with riparian states to improve water governance and water management practices. This has resulted in multi-scale participatory governance frameworks for joint management of water resources and improvement of livelihoods through riverbank protection schemes. This has complemented and helped to facilitate large scale government and donor initiatives that have supported the establishment the Volta Basin Authority.

The Water and Nature Initiate’s (WANI) activities in the Mekong followed a strategy of mobilizing grass-roots engagement of local stakeholders in decision making, while facilitating high-level dialogues. This helped to build networked, multi-stakeholder processes which could begin to bridge local to national and regional decision making in the basin to support improved transboundary basin management.

Climate change and the over exploitation of water resources is challenging the sustainability of the Pangani River Basin to deliver water services. Competition for diminishing water resources has led to tensions between the various stakeholders within the basin. Together with the government of Tanzania and donor partners, WANI has responded to this crisis by supporting the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Inappropriate water management practices in the Komadugu Yobe Basin, upstream of Lake Chad in northern Nigeria, changed the seasonal river flow and caused widespread environmental degradation. Coupled with this was fragmented regulation and conflicting responsibilities among institutions, a lack of coordination for hydro-agricultural developments, inequitable access to water resources and growing tensions and risk of conflicts among water users.