Theme 4-4-Integrated water resources management – role of research and development in hydrology

Abstract

The high rates of population growth and the expectation of improved living standards is leading to increasing pressures on water resources. There is need for continuous monitoring and quantifying changes in the natural environment and dynamic hydrological regimes due to human activities and climate change. Uncertainty in future demands and availability of water has to be properly understood and accounted for. Some of the critical areas would need study over extended periods in a well coordinated manner to provide effective hydrological R&D inputs. Various issues of integrated and sustainable development of water resources require greater use of hydrological knowledge and expertise, improved observations and analysis, and above all effective communication between hydrologists and policy makers. The modern scientific developments in electronics, mathematics and computer as well as remote sensing and GIS techniques offer vast potential for effective R&D in hydrology.

The new ethic of sustainable development reinforces and extends the main principles of water resources management. It has been agreed that there is more of water management crisis than water crisis. It is bad management, bad institution, bad governance, bad incentives and bad allocation of resources, which are threatening our water resources.