Water Resources Management - Practices of Irrigation and On-farm Water Management - page 140

5.6.2 Adaptation Alternatives to the Climate Change .............. 186
5.7 Challenges in Water Resources Management .................. 188
5.7.1 Risk and Uncertainties ......................... 188
5.7.2 International/Intra-national (Upstream-Downstream) Issues ........ 188
5.7.3 Quality Degradation Due to Continuous Pumping of Groundwater ..... 188
5.7.4 Lowering of WT and Increase in Cost
of Pumping .............................. 189
Relevant Journals ................................ 189
Questions .................................... 190
References ................................... 190
Together with energy, water is one of the major fuels of economic development. A
development plan, especially in a water-short area, such as an arid zone belt, or a
flat area underlain by hard rocks without major surface streams, cannot be drawn
unless a clear idea of water availability and costs has been reached.
Water is distributed in the earth unevenly in time and space. Although the nat-
ural water is adequate in absolute terms, it is not available at the right time, place,
quantity, and quality. With an increasing population and its legitimate demand for
an improved standard of living, requiring increased economic development and
agricultural production, most of the regions of the world are facing an enormous
challenge in how to allocate, use, and protect this limited resource. Improved and
efficient water management practices can help to maintain farm profitability in an
era of increasingly limited and more costly water supplies. Improved water manage-
ment may also reduce the impact of irrigated production on offsite water quantity
and quality, and conserve water for growing nonagricultural demands.
5.1 Concept, Perspective, and Objective of Water
Resources Management
5.1.1 Concept of Management
According to some sources, the word “management” originated from the Italian
word “ Maneggiare, ” which means “to train up the horses.” Other sources said “man-
agement” came from the French word “ Menager ” and “ Menage. ” Here, “ Menager ”
means “to direct a household,” and “ Menage ” means an act of guiding or lead-
ing. Thus, it means to plan, organize, command, coordinate and control. According
to Griffin ( 1997 ) , “Management is a set of activities (including planning and
decision making, organizing, leading, and control) directed at an organization's
resources (e.g., human, financial, physical, information) with the aim of achieving
organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner.”
Water management is concerned with improving access to and the efficient use of
water. Such measures will increase the volume of goods produced by increasing the
availability of water and will also improve its productivity by increasing the returns
to water by, for example, applying water more efficiently to irrigated crops.