Integrated water resources management (IWRM) for climate change adaptation

Abstract

Climate change is one of the significant threats for the society. Water is the primary medium through which climate change influences the Earth's ecosystems and therefore people's livelihoods and well-being. Changes in hydrological cycle due to climate change can lead to diverse impacts and risks (Bates et al. 2008;Jiménez Cisneros et al. 2014). Jiménez Cisneros et al. (2014 synthesized water-related impacts on humans and Earth biomes. Renewable surface water and groundwater resources in most dry subtropical regions are projected to reduce due to climate change. The fraction of global population that will be affected by water scarcity and riverine floods is projected to increase with the level of warming in current century. Agriculture is directly related to water and therefore, food security will be potentially affected by climate change, including food production, transportation, process, access, use and price stability. Climate change and the associated impacts on water are expected to lead to increases in water-related diseases in many regions and especially in the low-income developing countries. In urban areas, climate change is projected to increase risks for people, assets, economies and ecosystems, including risks from heat stress, storms and extreme precipitation, inland and coastal flooding, landslides, air pollution, drought, water scarcity, sea level rise and storm surges. Rural areas are expected to experience major impacts on water availability and supply, food security, infrastructure and agricultural incomes, including shifts in the production areas of food and non-food crops around the world. Beside climatic drivers, other nonclimatic drivers such as current demographic trends, economic development and related land-use changes have direct impact on social and ecological systems and their processes. These drivers of change are closely linked to each other and pose complex management problems for land and water resources.In order to deal with these complex problems, water management issues should generally consider multiple decisional criteria and large numbers of possible alternatives, usually characterized by high uncertainty, complex interactions and conflicting interests of multiple stakeholders, but also of a multiplicity of compartments, such as river, land or coastal ecosystems or different economic sectors. Therefore, the traditional fragmented approach of management has to be replaced by more holistic system view approaches. Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is such an approach that has been widely accepted internationally as the way forward for efficient and equitable management of water and related resources.Climate change adaptation (CCA) is emerging in the policy agenda of policy-makers worldwide. In the field of water resources, one of the challenges for adaptation is to integrate and mainstream it into the paradigmatic IWRM concept. Integrating and mainstreaming adaptation with IWRM increases additional implementation burden on IWRM. However, this also fosters innovative...

Climate change effects on the hydrology of the headwaters of the Tagus River: implications for the management of the Tagus–Segura transfer

“…Based on the average monthly temperature data of the three climatic scenarios, the potential evapotranspiration series were estimated using the Thornthwaite method (Thornthwaite, 1948;Gomariz-Castillo et al, 2018). As this method tends to underestimate the potential evapotranspiration, the series generated were corrected from a linear regression between the estimated series and those used by the SIMPA hydrological model (BOE, 2007).…”

“…Moreover, there are scarce examples in the specialized literature of the analysis of the effects of CC within a framework of integrated water resource management (Onagi, 2016). In ad-dition, for an adequate comprehensive study of the effects of CC in an IBWT, and to produce operational indicators for water management plans (Giupponi and Gain, 2017), including the management of water trade (Kahil et al, 2015), it is also necessary to consider the effects in the receiving basin.…”

Moving beyond water centricity? Conceptualizing integrated water resources management for implementing sustainable development goals

“…Without careful consideration this diversity in practical interpretation could well inhibit the use of IWRM implementation as an objective indicator for comparative SDG analysis. In view of this, we identify seven principles of IWRM based on international norms (GWP 2009, UNESCO 2009, OECD 2018), national implementation studies, and our earlier research (Benson et al 2015;Gain et al 2017;Gain et al 2013;Giupponi and Gain 2017;Rouillard et al 2014). These seven core principles or 'dimensions' can be abstracted to inform conceptual sub-indicators, as composite measures of SDG 6.5. implementation (Fig.…”

A Comparative Legal Study On Water Governance In Japan And Taiwan

“…Some commentators have thus advocated that climate information and impact analysis needs be incorporated in the context of IWRM planning process (Bates, Kundzewicz, Wu, & Palutikof, 2009). Climate change and climate variability impacts on water resources need to be identified and further coherent water policies need to be proposed through innovative governance and institutional arrangement that aims at enhancing adaptive capacity to climate changes impacts within the context of developing IWRM plans (Giupponi & Animesh, 2017).…”