Water Resources Management - Practices of Irrigation and On-farm Water Management - page 173

- Water resources management based on hydrological boundaries
- Government to coordinate the national management of water resources across
water use sectors
Barriers in implementing IWRM include the following:
- Ignorance of interrelation between biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of a
system
- Inadequate information and data on how water is used in agriculture
- Lack of understanding/awareness of IWRM principles and practices
- Demographic pressures
- Lack of political will and financial resource
- Incompleteness in water management policy and legal and regulatory frameworks
Problems with IWRM include the following:
- Institutional requirement will be huge.
- Can disrupt the existing system and therefore meet with a lot of frustration and
negativity of the officials within the various departments.
5.4 Sustainability Issues in Water Resource Management
Water sustains life. It is our duty to sustain all sources of water. Scarcity and misuse
of fresh water pose a serious and growing threat to sustainable development and
protection of the environment. Human health and welfare, food security, industrial
development, and the ecosystems on which they depend, are all at risk, unless water
resources are managed more effectively at present and beyond what they have been
in the past.
5.4.1 Concept of Sustainability
Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present with-
out compromising the ability of future generations. Sustainable water management
and development is defined as a set of actions to secure the present functions of
water without jeopardizing the interests of future generations. Sustainable manage-
ment implies managing for the long term. Water resources systems that are able
to satisfy to the extent possible the changing demands placed on them over time,
without system degradation, can be called “sustainable.”.
Sustainability, as defined in the Brundtland Commission's report “Our Common
Future” (WCED, 1987 ) , focuses on meeting the needs of both current and future
generations. Development is sustainable if