Holistic regional approach to water management

The availability of adequate freshwater of appropriate quality has become a limiting factor for development, worldwide. The water requirement of all users can be satisfied by proper technical means such as water imports or relocations, desalinization as well as proper prevention of pollution, remediation, clean-up and recycling; however, such measures if applied locally on an ad-hoc basis as an emergency procedure may impose an unbearable and unjust economic burden on some of the stakeholders and not necessarily those responsible for the problem. Such a situation is in all cases a pretext for discord and assignment of blame on those supposedly responsible for the deterioration of the water quality. The potential for friction is especially high under a trans-border situation. It is now recognized that the rational, equitable and economically advantageous utilization of water resources must encompass the total watershed if not the whole regional water cycle. Since all stakeholders have a common dependence on the same water resources, water management can then become an inducement for regional co-operation.