On integrated water resources management

Integrated water resources management involves simultaneous management of the quantity and quality of surface waters of rivers, lakes and reservoirs or other water bodies; and of ground water and vadose zone water, without causing undue harm to the environment and in concert with acceptable socio-economic policy. Employing hydraulics, hydrology, and environmental science and engineering, the management may entail multiple sectors, multiple stakeholders, multiple players, and decision makers. Decision making often is subject to multi-criteria, multi-objectives, and multi-constraints; and is governed by socio-economic evaluation and public policy. In order to reach the decision making stage, a lot of groundwork needs to be done, involving data gathering and processing, hypothesis formulation and modeling, calibration and verification, uncertainty and risk analysis, learning from data analysis and observations, and public (stakeholder) participation. The session on integrated water resources management has attracted a significant response, involving a number of interesting contributions. This paper provides ail overview of these contributions and attempts to tie them together in the context of integrated water resources management.