Lecture Two

Introduction to WRPM
 Introduction to WRPM
2

Lecture Outline:
i. Water resources planning and management issues
(why plan? Why manage?)
ii. water resources planning approaches, stages, Criteria
and objectives
iii. Structural and non-structural measures in water
resources management
 Learning Objectives
3

 To clearly understand why we want to plan and

manage WR
 To know the general approaches and stages used
in WRP
 To understand the complexity and uncertainty
characteristics of WRP
 i. Water resources planning and management issues
(why plan? Why manage?)
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 The world's available freshwater supply is not distributed

evenly around the globe, throughout the seasons, or from
year to year.
 In some cases water is not where we want it, nor in
sufficient quantities.
 In general the renewable freshwater resources are:
 Finite
 Scarce
 Variable
 Temporal
 Spatial

 Deteriorating in terms of quality and per capita availability

 i. Water resources planning and management issues
(why plan? Why manage?)
5

Water is not distributed as we might wish.

 There is often too much or too little, or
 What exists is too polluted or too expensive.
 There is also degradation of Aquatic ecosystems.
 Other Planning and Management Issues
• Navigation
• Reservoir related issues
 i. Water resources planning and management issues
(why plan? Why manage?)
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Planning and management is required to ensure that:

 there is sufficient water of adequate quality for drinking
water and sanitation services, food production, energy
generation, inland water transport, and water-based
recreational, as well as sustaining healthy water-dependent
ecosystems and protecting the aesthetic and spiritual
values of lakes, rivers, and estuaries.
 water-related risks including floods, drought, and
contamination are managed.
 i. Water resources planning and management issues
(why plan? Why manage?)
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 Planning is process by which society directs its activities

to achieve goals it regards as important. It is strategy for
achieving a desired set of goals;
 Planning is a systematic way of investigating a problem
and an exercise in acquiring, evaluating, and analyzing
information and then making a decision;
 Planning is about the future. The future is fundamentally
uncertain. Planning has to address this uncertainty. This is
addressed using scenarios.
Scenarios

In the context of WR both supply and demand are uncertain.

 A scenario is simply defined as possible future.

 Management responses need to be robust to various

alternative pathways (with no indication of probability of
occurrence) within the domain of possible futures.

Scenarios are fundamentally very important in WRP.

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What are scenarios?

 Stories about possible futures

 Not predictions!
 Hypothetical configurations of events
 Plausible and possible not probable!
 Credible and internally consistent
 Allow us to anticipate change

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scenarios

Why do we want to learn about the future?

 We want to prevent problems
 We want to prevent conflicts
 We want to be prepared if something would go
wrong
 We do not like uncertainty

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but a little bit better?
Sometimes it isn’t

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 Examples of scenario variables are:
 climate change,
 demographic trend and change, and
 economic growth.

Scenario planning helps to identify a range of dramatically

different future conditions with an unknown likelihood of
occurring.

Scenario planning is built on thorough analysis of future

possibilities, combined with the knowledge and insight of
individuals who know and understand the basin.

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 i. Water resources planning and management issues
(why plan? Why manage?)
15

 Water resources planning and management is

concerned with modifying the time and space
availability of water for various purposes so as to
accomplish certain basic national, regional and
local objectives.
 Objective of WRPM: to provide the supplies of
water in accordance with the temporal and spatial
distribution of demands through river regulation
and distribution systems.
 It has to reflect a paradigm of uncertainty about
the future. This is usually addressed using scenarios.
 i. Water resources planning and management issues
(why plan? Why manage?)
16

 Water resources problems are Complex,

interconnected, and overlapping Involving water
allocations, economic development, and
environmental preservation.
 Water resources problems have scientific, technical,
political (institutional), economic, and social
dimensions.
 ii. Water resources planning aspects
17

The ultimate goal of WR planning and management

is to serve the public by ensuring that water of
required quantity and quality is available at the right
location and at the right time. The aim is also to
protect society from the harmful effects of water.
Thus water resources planning and management
activities needs to properly address, and if possible
answer, the following questions:
 How can the renewable, yet finite water resources best be
managed and used?
 How can this be accomplished in an environment of uncertain
supplies and uncertain and increasing demands?
 ii. Water resources planning aspects
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These questions have:

 scientific
 technical
 political (institutional) and
 social dimensions.

Thus Proper water resources management requires

consideration of both supply and demand.
 ii. Water resources planning aspects
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Water Resources Planning is Unique and complex

 Significant impacts
 High potential for conflict
 Uncertainty of resources and demands
 Technical and political concerns
 Divergent interests
 iii. Stages in Water Resources Planning
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WR planning is a logical course of actions leading to the

selection of the best acceptable project in response to an
Identified need.
Usually the following stages are involved:
Stage 1. The project initiation stage
Stage 2. The data collection stage
Stage 3. Project configuration stage
Stage 4. Detailed planning stage
Stage 5. The design stage
 iii. Stages in Water Resources Planning
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Criteria in water resources planning and management

A number of other criteria, which are often interrelated,
come into play in planning and managing water
resources. They include:
• effectiveness,
• efficiency,
• equity and distributional effects,
• public health and nutrition,
• environmental impact,
• political and public acceptability,
• sustainability, and
• administrative feasibility.
 Water resources planning and
management concerns

 How can these renewable, yet finite resources best

be managed and used in efficient, equitable and
sustainable manner?
 How can this be accomplished in an environment of
uncertain supplies and uncertain and increasing
demands?, and
 How can conflicts among individuals having
different interests in the management of a river and
its basin is managed?

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Economic efficiency in water use: Because of the increasing
scarcity of water and financial resources, water must be used with
maximum possible efficiency;

• Equity: The basic right for all people to have access to water of
adequate quantity and quality for the sustenance of human wellbeing
must be recognized;

• Environmental and ecological sustainability: The present use of

the resource should be managed in a way that does not undermine
the life-support system thereby compromising use by future
generations of the same resource.

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 Sustainability
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 do what is needed now, but without

compromising the needs of future
generations
 sustainability = trade-off

 now versus later

 economy versus environmental quality
 iv. System approach for WRPM
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Water resources management involves influencing and

improving the interaction of three interdependent
subsystems:
 The natural river subsystem in which the physical, chemical
and biological processes are take place.
 The socio-economic subsystem, which includes the human
activities related to the use of the natural river system.
 The adiminstrative and institutional subsystem in which
decisions and planning and management processes take
palce.
 iv. System components of WRSPM
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AIS

NRS SEC
27 impacts socio-
natural demands economic
system system
water
resources
management
laws,
regulations,
infrastructure management

institutional
system
 Interactions among subsystems

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 iv. System approach for WRPM
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 The NRS incorporates the supply side of the system;

 The streams, rivers, lakes and their embankments and
bottoms, and the ground water aquifer canals, reservoirs,
dams, weirs, sluices, wells, pumping plants and wastewater
treatment plants the water itself, including its physical,
chemical and biological components
 The SES incorporates the demand side;
 water-using and water-related human activities.
 The management of both the supply and the
demand sides is provided by the AIS;
 the system of administration, legislation and regulation,
 iv. System approach for WRPM
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NRS: Natural River System

 System of rivers, lakes, groundwater aquifers,
canals, embankments, etc. and all related
human-made infrastructure
 Boundaries can be defined clearly
 iv. System approach for WRPM
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SES: Socio-economic system

Water using and water related human activities
 agriculture and fisheries
 public and industrial water supply
 navigation
 recreation and nature conservation
 power production (hydropower and cooling)
 transport of pollutants and heat
 etc.

 Boundaries can not be defined clearly

 iv. System approach for WRPM
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AIS: Administrative and Institutional System

The system of administration, legislation and regulation,
including the authorities responsible for the
management of the WRS and implementation of laws
and regulation
 central, regional and local

 co-ordinating bodies

 stakeholder organisations
 Institutional Aspects
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 WRD and WRM needs an enabling environment

 good national, and local policies
 good legislation
 good institutions
 Involvement of government is crucial
 water is a resources without property rights
 water requires sometimes large investments
 water is an easy medium to transfer external effects
 Definitions
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 Policy goal: Where do we want to go ?

 Strategy: How do we think to get there ?
 Measures / interventions: part of a strategy
 technical measures
 ecological measures
 managerial (operational) measures
 economic (incentive) measures
 institutional measures
 Measures
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 Technical (structural) measures
 canals, pumping stations, fish stairs, ...
 Managerial measures
 (daily) operation of reservoirs, gates, weirs, etc.
 Economic incentives
 charges, taxes, fines, subsidies, ...
 Regulation (managerial) measures
 permits, land-use zoning, ...
 Institutional arrangements
 defining tasks and responsibilities, capacity building, ...
 Planning for WRM Involves
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 What has not been achieved yet and why not?

 Problem statement
 What do you want to achieve?
 Objective
 How can we measure in how far we have achieved
that objective?
 Criteria/indicator
 What can we do to improve the situation?
 Measures
 Which institutions and stakeholders are involved in
implementing these measures
 Essential steps in WRPM:
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 Define the problem.

 Identify the system, define its elements, and gather
relevant data.
 Define the system objectives and constraints.

 Generate feasible alternatives that satisfy physical,

social, political, economic and legal constraints on the
system and its management.
 Evaluate the alternatives for attaining system
objectives and identify the most suitable among them.
 Challenges of WRPM
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 Demand
 Population growth

 Competing needs (human, energy, industry,

food, environment)
 Availability
 Variability

 Climate change

 Pollution

 Extreme events
 Floods

 Droughts
 The challenge of WRPM
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To strike a balance between the use of the resources as a basis for livelihood
and the protection and conservation of the resource to sustain its functions and
characteristics
  Water resources of a river basin are interrelated
 u/s and d/s users
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 Quantity and quality
 GW and surface water

 The different uses of water resources are interdependent

 Integrated approaches in the planning and management
of projects is needed to maximize overall basin wide
benefit
 Sectoral approaches to water resources management
have dominated in the past and are still prevailing. This
leads to fragmented and uncoordinated development and
management of the resource.
.
Water Resources Development and Water
resources Management
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 WRD: all we want to do and are able to do to improve

the beneficial use of water for human society;
 Physical activities to improve the beneficial use of water for
different uses.
 WRM: Water Resources Management
 includes development
 but also planning, operation, monitoring, etc

Definitions from Ethiopia water

management policy

Conventionally water resources management applies to the

management of blue water i.e. to management of surface and
groundwater.
 WRD
Some WRD projects;
1. Surface storages: reservoirs, natural lakes with control
outflows
2. Channalization: canals (irrigation, navigation, drainage,
dykes, and erosion control measures
3. Diversion of water: inter-basin water transfer
4. Waste treatment
5. Ground water extraction and artificial recharge

 WRD – the problem is often complex and has

multiplicity of goals and alternatives
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 Thank you!

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