scholarly journals Water Policy Reforms in South Korea: A Historical Review and Ongoing Challenges for Sustainable Water Governance and Management

Water ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ik-Chang Choi ◽  
Hio-Jung Shin ◽  
Trung Nguyen ◽  
John Tenhunen
2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marium Sara Minhas Bandeali

Water governance and management are important challenges for the River Indus Basin in Pakistan. Water governance refers to social, political and economic factors that influence water management. The water scarcity and water security are a major concern for the state to control its water resources. The study aims to give Sindh water policy by exploring the challenges to Indus Basin in managing water resources and to identify opportunities Indus Basin can look to improve water management. Interviews were conducted from water experts and analysts having 5 years’ experience or more in the water sector of Pakistan through a semi-structured self-developed questionnaire using purposive sampling technique and transcripts were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The findings show that increasing population, climatic change and rising demand of water are major challenges Indus is facing and Indus with time is getting water-scarce therefore need strong institutions, civil society and legislatures to ensure equitable distribution of water and maintain the ecosystem. The study emphasizes that water governance and management are necessary for sustainable use of water. Pakistan, the water stress country needs to address ‘governance’ at a wider scale to solve problems in the Indus Basin for the livelihood of people. The research will benefit the state, water experts, institutions as well as civil society to promote efficient use of water in Indus Basin.


2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (10) ◽  
pp. 301-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Baril ◽  
Y. Maranda ◽  
J. Baudrand

The Quebec Water Policy was launched in November 2002 in support of reform of the water governance. One of the government commitments is to gradually implement watershed-based management for 33 major watercourses located primarily in the St. Lawrence plain. At the local and regional levels, watershed organizations are responsible for implementing integrated management, from a sustainable-development perspective, by preparing a master plan for water (MPW), which will include watercourses, lakes, wetlands and aquifers. These watershed organizations rely on public consultation, as well as local and regional expertise, on the responsibilities for water of the municipalities and regional county municipalities of the territory, as well as those of the ministries and other government agencies. They are also required to observe national priorities regarding protection, restoration, and development of water resources and to comply with relevant guidelines, directives, standards, regulations, and legislation. The role of watershed organizations is to act as planning and consultation tables. Government representatives are present, on the initial process, as the facilitator and for scientific and technical support. They do not have, at this moment, any voting or decisional rights. After two years, integrated water management mobilized water stakeholders on watersheds and they are on their way to initiating their first MPW.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Jodar-Abellan ◽  
Patricia Fernández-Aracil ◽  
Joaquín Melgarejo-Moreno

Currently, water demands are increasing notoriously, spreading the pressure on available water resources around the world in both quantity and quality. Similarly, the expected reduction of natural water inputs, due to climate change, depicts a new level of uncertainty. Specifically, Southeast Spain presents water scarcity due to its aridity—irregular and scarce precipitation and high evapotranspiration rates—combined with the competition between several water demands: environment, agricultural dynamics, urban-tourist activities, and industry. The study area of this work is the most relevant functional urban area of Alicante province (SE Spain), where the administration of water management is carried out by a range of authorities at different levels as the consequence of a complex historical development of water governance schemes: at the national, regional, and local levels. This study analyzes 21 municipalities and proposes a conceptual model which was developed by including different origins of water inputs—surface resources, groundwater, desalination, wastewater reuse, or interbasin transfers—and water demands with information obtained from 16 different sources. Our main results denote a relevant water deficit of 72.6 hm3/year even when one of the greatest rates of desalinated water and reused wastewater in Europe are identified here. This negative balance entails restrictions in urban development and agricultural growth. Thus, presented results are noteworthy for the water policy makers and planning authorities, by balancing the demand for water among various end users and providing a way for understanding water distribution in a context of scarcity and increasing demand, which will become one of the most challenging tasks in the 21st century.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 137 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Grafton ◽  
Dustin Garrick ◽  
Ana Manero ◽  
Thang Do

The world faces critical water risks in relation to water availability, yet water demand is increasing in most countries. To respond to these risks, some governments and water authorities are reforming their governance frameworks to achieve convergence between water supply and demand and ensure freshwater ecosystem services are sustained. To assist in this reform process, the Water Governance Reform Framework (WGRF) is proposed, which includes seven key strategic considerations: (1) well-defined and publicly available reform objectives; (2) transparency in decision-making and public access to available data; (3) water valuation of uses and non-uses to assess trade-offs and winners and losers; (4) compensation for the marginalized or mitigation for persons who are disadvantaged by reform; (5) reform oversight and “champions”; (6) capacity to deliver; and (7) resilient decision-making. Using these reform criteria, we assess current and possible water reforms in five countries: Murray–Darling Basin (Australia); Rufiji Basin (Tanzania); Colorado Basin (USA and Mexico); and Vietnam. We contend that the WGRF provides a valuable approach to both evaluate and to improve water governance reform and, if employed within a broader water policy cycle, will help deliver both improved water outcomes and more effective water reforms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 967-970
Author(s):  
Ashwin B. Pandya ◽  
Shreshta Sharma
Keyword(s):  

2016 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 1650038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Alexandra

Risks and uncertainties arising from climate change are increasingly recognized as significant challenges for water governance. To support adaptive approaches, critical examinations of water policy practices and rationalities are needed. This paper focuses on the treatment of climate change in Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) reforms over the past decade. While the MDB faces potentially significant drying trends due to climate change no reductions in future water availability due to climate change were formalized in the 2012 Basin Plan — a regulatory instrument agreed to by Australia’s National Parliament. The background, key dimensions and possible reasons for this decision are examined. Possible reasons for not formally reducing water deemed available in the future include the complexity and uncertainty of climate science, the cultural construction of “climate normal” based on long-term averages, and institutional settings that reinforce dominant “hydro-logical” approaches and rationalities. Minimizing the political, legal and financial consequences of attributing reductions in water allocations to climate change are also potential reasons. The case of the MDB, as outlined in this paper, demonstrates some of the ways climate change is causing systemic challenges for adaptive water governance, and that innovative approaches need to be embraced, including better processes for institutionalizing science/policy integration.


Water Policy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 915-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Garrick ◽  
Rosalind Bark ◽  
Jeff Connor ◽  
Onil Banerjee

A reform process is underway in the Murray–Darling Basin (Australia) to reallocate water from irrigated agriculture to the environment. The scale, complexity and politics of the recovery process have prompted interest in the role of local environmental water managers within state and federal governance arrangements. This paper examines prospects for a local role in environmental water management through the lens of the subsidiarity principle: the notion that effective governance devolves tasks to the lowest level with the political authority and capacity to perform them. The article defines and applies the subsidiarity principle to assess evolving federal–state–local interactions in environmental water policy, planning and practice in Australia's Murray–Darling River. In this context, subsidiarity is useful to clarify institutional roles and their coordination at a whole-of-river level. This analysis demonstrates opportunities for a local role in information gathering, innovation and operational flexibility to respond to opportunities in real time. It identifies significant limits to local action in upstream–downstream tradeoffs, economies of scale, capacity building and cost sharing for basin-wide or national interests, and accountability mechanisms to balance local, state and national rights and responsibilities. Lessons are relevant internationally for regions confronting complex allocation tradeoffs between human and environmental needs within multi-jurisdictional federal systems.


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