ANNEX 2

WORLD WATER FORUM - THE HAGUE - MARCH 2000
INBO VISION FOR 2025

INBO WORKSHOP – 20 MARCH 2000

" Water in Rivers : Developing River Basin Organizations over the World "

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE WORKSHOP

The participants in the Workshop, organized by the International Network of Basin Organizations during the day devoted to "Water in Rivers" in the WORLD WATER FORUM, on 20 March 2000 in THE HAGUE, formulated the following recommendations:

A sound management of water resources is a prerequisite to ensure quality of life on our planet and sustainable socioeconomic development.

The issues raised are complex and the solutions must at the same time allow for:

- the contending with natural catastrophes and risks of erosion, floods or drought, taking into account land and water management,

- the reliable meeting of urban and rural populations' requirements in terms of good quality drinking water, in order to improve hygiene and health and to prevent important outbreaks of disease,

- the reclamation of farmlands and the development of appropriate irrigation systems to reach food self-sufficiency,

- harmoniously developing industry, energy production, recreational activities and, in some areas, tourism and waterways navigation,

- preventing and controlling pollution of all kinds and origins, in order to preserve aquatic ecosystems and more especially, to protect fauna and optimize fish breeding for human consumption, while meeting the requirements of various uses and more generally, preserving the biodiversity of the aquatic environment.

All these issues can no longer be approached by sector or localization, nor approached separately. Looking for solutions the objective of which is sustainable water use must associate the national and local authorities together with the users in integrated water resources management which respects the natural environment, and is organized on the scale of river basins.

INBO recommends that:

Πintegrated water resources and environmental management be organized on the scale of large river basins in order to meet rightful needs in the best way possible,

� Local Authorities, all the various categories of users and the civil society participate in the formulation of water policy within river basin committees in particular,

Ž Basin Master Plans be formulated with medium and long term objectives and implemented within Five-Year Priority Action Programs,

� specific financing systems, based on the "users-polluters-pay" principle, be developed in order that "water pays for water" with a basin common cause concept.

Cooperation agreements should be signed and formalized between riparian countries regarding large shared rivers, lakes and seas, especially within specific international commissions.

Integrated water resources management implies that comprehensive and permanent information systems are developed at all relevant levels, especially for each national or shared river basin, to acquire better knowledge of the status of water resources and ecosystems, in quality and quantity, of their uses and of the pollution discharged, either point or non-point pollution.

Information and training capacities should be developed for the representatives of local authorities and users to enable them to fully assume the responsibilities and missions assigned to them within the framework of the basin policy.

The International Network of Basin Organizations approves the draft Associated Program prepared to fit in with " Global Water Partnership ". Its objectives are:

- to develop permanent relations with the organizations interested in integrated water resources management at the level of large river basins in order to facilitate exchanges of experience and expertise among them,

- to facilitate the development of tools for institutional and financial management, programming, the organization of data bases, models adapted to the needs,

- to design information and training programs for local elected officials, the representatives of users and the different actors involved in water management as well as for the executives and staff of the member basin organizations,

- to encourage education of the population, the young in particular,

- to evaluate ongoing actions and disseminate their results by developing, in particular, a global integrated system for the exchange of documentation among the basin organizations.

INBO draws the attention of governments and bi and multilateral cooperation agencies on the prime importance of using the above principles and means in their programs to ensure sound water management at river basin level which is a prerequisite to the future sustainable development of mankind.

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WORLD WATER VISION

INBO paper

1 - Water resource: a process relying on the natural infrastructure of the river basin

• The natural infrastructure: the basin’s hydrological system.
  It involves all the elements of the river basin in which water flows and changes.

• The process: it is a series of interactive (physical, chemical, biological) phenomena which cause water quality to change in its flow and storage.
  Fresh water resources, their quality and availability (stocks of surface and groundwater, hydrology) are the permanent outputs of a complex and natural process, the water cycle, on which the impact of man activities is growing.

This process takes place in a river basin, a specific geographic area, the limits of which are not usually seen on maps.

Many phenomena, involved in this cycle, purify water, making it suitable for life development (fish farming etc.) and, most often, naturally usable by man.

This process only evolves thanks to a natural infrastructure: (topography of the basin, soils, sub-soils, a network of rivers and of their ecosystems, wetlands, surface or underground storage capacities, etc.). The different functions of these elements of the hydrological system in the " water " process are not usually well known. It is the case of the role of ecosystems deriving from watercourses. Their economic value and the services they provide are never recorded in countries’ public accounts.

This is why this hydrological system (its wetlands for instance) are sometimes seriously deteriorated by activities that ignore its significance. It is obvious that the deterioration of the natural infrastructure (the hydrological system) disturbs the process (the water cycle) and its output (the water resource).

The sustainable management of water resources thus implies that each element which is included in the natural infrastructure (the basin’s hydrological system) remains in good status and operates normally.

2 - INBO’s founding principles

The International Network of Basin Organizations (INBO) gathers organizations which, in their country, are entrusted by public administrations with the management of water resources at the level of river basins, taking into account the global aspect and complexity of the " water cycle" process in the basin and the solidarity of water users whose supply depends on it

The network, relying on the actual experience of its members, has defined some principles that must become guidelines in the implementation of a policy for long-term water resources management and thus contribute to the sustainable development of countries. These principles are the following:

• The river basin is the unit for sound water resources management

Sustainable management of water resources must take the water cycle into account. This means that the river basins and their hydrological systems are the only geographic units that allow for a clear overall vision of the complex and interactive processes that contribute to the generation of natural water resources.

• Approach must be comprehensive and integrated.

It is not possible to implement sustainable and sound management of water resources without a comprehensive approach which integrates all the components of the "water cycle" process and all the users of the hydrological system. Each significant use changes or disturbs the river basin’s hydrological system and can thus have impacts on other uses.

This comprehensive and integrated vision is indispensable for optimizing water resource management.

Integrated management must be envisioned in the long term, as the mechanisms which intervene in the process may act slowly. For instance, the time necessary for recharging groundwater may be very long.

• Knowledge and monitoring of the resource are necessary

Comprehensive water resources management in a river basin implies good knowledge of the functioning of the hydrological system, that is of the elements that compose the latter. This requires regular assessments based on systematic monitoring, that is to say the use of a suitable monitoring tool: a network for monitoring the quantity and quality of water and aquatic ecosystems, a geographic information system, standardized indicators for follow up, etc

• Knowledge of uses and of their impact is also necessary

The optimization of resource management also requires a global vision of all the water uses in the basin (withdrawals for irrigation, drinking water, industry, etc.) and of the impacts of human activities on water and the hydrological system (polluting discharges but also disturbances of the " water cycle " process by deteriorating some elements of the hydrological system, such as the drying up of marshes, the lowering of groundwater level by overexploitation, etc).

• Sustainable development requires the definition of long-term objectives for each basin

Integrated long-term management must be organized, based on the information thus gathered, on the global comparison between the status of the resource (water, hydrological system) and uses and impacts, and by integrating long-term perspectives: status and evolution of the aquatic resource, evolution of needs (demand increase, possibility of saving water).

New water supply opportunities must be identified as well as the limits of the natural resource and the risks of shortage (quantity) or of deterioration (quality) which can also lead to impossibility of or difficulty in using it. The planning objective is to enable the meeting of use requirements through sound management which is not detrimental to the aquatic " resource " and to the hydrological system thus enabling the good functioning of the process that generates this resource.

• All stakeholders must be involved in the basin’s water policy

It is obvious that this long-term comprehensive management can only be defined and implemented with an active participation of all stakeholders of the river basin: public administrations, local elected representatives and all water users (populations, industry, agriculture, etc.). INBO recommends that arrangements be defined and made so that all the various stakeholders of the basin be associated in the formulation of orientations for the sustainable management of the basin’s water resources.

• These stakeholders must be suitably informed and trained

To guarantee that the definition and implementation of sustainable water resources management are successful, it is necessary that the different stakeholders have a minimal knowledge of the mechanisms that intervene in the " water cycle " process, of the status of the basin’s hydrological system and of the different uses of the resource. This information must be adapted to the responsibilities of each of them.

This is why is it essential to develop a voluntary policy for awareness raising, information and training of the different categories of stakeholders (populations, elected representatives, technicians and functionaries responsible for water policy).

Comprehensive information should enable each of them to better understand the stakes, in particular the needs of other categories of users and the possible limits of the resource, especially when resorting to arbitration becomes necessary.

• "User-polluter-pays" charges are useful.

Finally, INBO considers that the establishment of financial mechanisms such as charges in accordance with the " polluter-pays" and " user-pays" principles are useful to achieve two objectives

• on one hand, contribution to the financing of water policy,
• on the other, raising the awareness of the stakeholders as to the economic value of the " water resource" and the need for its saving and protection.

3 - Perspectives

At present, it is noted that a growing number of people in charge, either local, administrative or political, adhere to these principles even if their application requires time. This shows that ideas change as concerns water management in a time when the world population is growing, which increases the occurrence of water-related issues.

INBO considers that the application of these principles will extend in some decades, as they correspond to a strong logic and are needed for a prospect of sustainable development.

INBO intends to help with their use, to facilitate information exchanges between the professionals of integrated management of natural water resources. Its does not intend to generalize patterns.

Within W.W.V., it seemed interesting to list some arguments which give an answer to the question " Why are some of these principles deemed to develop? "

• Better organization at river basin level

  The river basin is the geographic unit in which all processes on which depends the water resource interact: it is the only geographic area that enables global vision and sound management.

  In particular, river basin management is the only technical response that can be eligible and readable for managing events such as floods, low flows or for implementing a consistent pollution control policy. In addition, the river basin is the relevant area for the management of related aquifers.

  This is why change in regulations is starting to impose river basin management in some regions of the world (draft European framework directive).

  Finally, as regards rivers or streams, as global information systems develop, it is no more possible to ignore the uses and problems of other riparian people and it is easy to raise awareness as to common interest.

  All these elements as well as the example given by already existing organizations in charge of river basin management, the exchange of experience (encouraged by INBO), the dissemination of information and the impact of international conferences, the essential role of donors can only favor the creation of new structures, based on this principle.

• Better long-term planning

  Long-term planning, within the framework of a global river basin approach, is the sole possibility of foreseeing risks of shortage and taking early the necessary preventive measures.

  As regards water management, interests are diverging and the extent of some basins increases the differences in assessing a given situation. An agreement will have to be looked for regarding a masterplan which defines the main stakes and objectives. A consensus on these main strategic objectives is a prerequisite to river basin management.

   

  Masterplans allow sound use of water resources and thus the optimization of public and private investments, especially by guaranteeing the consistency of actions plans. This is why they should quickly be used by international donors in their assessment of the projects submitted by borrowers.

  The natural continuation of a masterplan is found in actions plans, formulated in accordance with the orientations given in the masterplan, and whose financing may, totally or partly, depend on local willingness to pay.

  For organizations in charge of overall river basin management, planning is a necessary tool. Its development is related to the increasing number of these organizations

• More environmental concerns in water management

Fulfilling prime use requirements is often an objective which is difficult enough to achieve and that obviates other concerns.

However, the social demand for a conserved or rehabilitated environment is growing strong in industrialized, emerging and economic and democratic developing countries. Under the influence of associations for the protection of nature, the notion of heritage to be preserved, protected or rehabilitated, tends to increase even in the regions which are more concerned with other issues.

In addition, the recent increase in knowledge has emphasized the significant role of aquatic ecosystems (wetlands for instance) in the process of water resources conservation and regeneration. This is why, beyond the sole water operational aspect in rivers, the taking into consideration of their ecosystem is becoming an unavoidable technical requirement of water management.

The growing importance of environmental concerns in water management seems thus ineluctable due to the social demand and to indisputable technical issues.

• Extension of "users-polluters-pay" charges

Awareness raising of the basin’s users as to their mutual interests which make them all responsible and interested in good water management in the basin, is an effective and incentive element for the use of water charges which, at least partly, internalize the environmental cost of water uses, or the service provided by the basin’s hydrological system, a collective infrastructure whose protection and management must be supported by all users as all of them benefit from it (as charges are shared by all in blocks of flats).

 

The prime advantage of applying the "user-polluter-pays" principle is to introduce an additional economic channel based on all water uses, whichever their nature and the user. Greater possibilities of regional financing, the improvement of international donors’ trust, the possibility of locally determining investment priorities are results of this process.

The use of charges, calculated according to uses and their impact, led the paying users to play, or want to play, an active part in their basin’s water management. This direct participation of the users, necessary for a good preparation of masterplans for sustainable management of the resource and for their social acceptance, is encouraged by INBO.

In addition, in developed countries, the consumer tends to organize himself and wants to be socially recognized. But he is more and more reluctant to pay more than he owes, or to pay for others. He is becoming the supporter of sound management and protection of the resource as it allows the minimization of the cost for accessing good-quality water, thanks to preventing measures that use the free natural process of water resources generation.

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