Introduction - Integrated Water Resource Planning - page 1

1 Introduction
Purpose of the topic
The purpose of this topic, Integrated Water Resource Planning: Achieving
Sustainable Outcomes , is to provide practical guidance on water resource
planning through each step of the water planning process, based on the
authors' research and experience over several years.
With increasing demands and competing uses for water globally, critical
decisions made about water management impact the environment and
community health and well-being. Evidence from effects of droughts and
floods as well as from heartfelt conflicts about sharing water suggests that
we still have a lot to learn about how to achieve sustainable and adaptive
management of rivers and groundwater.
In recent years many countries have reformed water institutions. Jurisdictions
around the world have been so busy implementing new approaches there has
been little opportunity for reflection and sharing of ideas. Early motivation
for us to write this topic derived from our own experiences working on water
reform in different State governments in Australia, with little awareness of
what was working well elsewhere. We knew what others were trying but
would it work any better than what we were doing?
Furthermore, reviews in Australia have identified gaps in skills and
capability that exist or are emerging in the water industries (ICEWaRM
2005). In 2008 we, along with colleague Vanessa O'Keefe, undertook inter-
views of water planners and stakeholders around Australia as part of the
National Water Commission (NWC) funded 'Water Planning Practices and
Lessons Learned' project (Hamstead et al. 2008a). Water planning agencies
in Australia, which have been implementing reforms since 1996, had a high
staff turnover and deficit in certain skill areas such as hydrology, community
engagement, social assessment, scenario planning and policy. Similarly a
survey of water planners in 2009 (Mackenzie and Bodsworth 2009) identified
interest in further training and professional development on collaborative
water planning approaches, particularly in the areas of Indigenous and
cross-cultural engagement, conflict management and social assessment. An
accompanying proposed training program identified nine possible deliverers