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Committee on Water Resources Management
Scope
Integrated water resources management is embedded
in political, legal and institutional contexts and these complexities
are reflected by multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives,
purposes, actors and groups which have to be integrated into the
decision-making process. Water resources management is understood
to be a set of actions taken to use and control natural resource
inputs in relation to water, to obtain outputs and natural systems
conditions useful to individual users and to society. To be effective,
the management approach has to accommodate fundamental physical,
economic, social and environmental linkages and interactions. Water
management systems have a long physical lifetime and a broad impact
area. The consequences of any management decision have to be evaluated
in a multi-objective context for both short and long-term consequences.
Additional uncertainties arise due to the long-term variability
of available water resources and of the unpredictable changes in
demand over long time periods. The evaluation process itself is
subject to the changing values of society. For instance, the objective
of environmental preservation has become a high priority in the
last two decade, whereas previously it was generally ignored in
the decision-making process.
The objective of the water resources management Committee of IAHR
is to improve understanding about the linkages between water-related
decision-making, society and the environment. These scientifically
based results have to be transferred to the water management institutions
and companies, which requires an intensive co-operation between
scientists and managers to ensure sustainable water use. The concept
of sustainability which is widely used in international declarations
and documents is highly appealing, but it needs further analysis
to develop an operational concept appropriate for daily water management.
The Committee for Water Resources Management has therefore adopted,
as a primary long-range goal, to promote the use of advanced technologies
to address problems of environmentally sound water resources management,
and has committed itself to encourage interdisciplinary approaches
in hydraulic engineering with special regard to ecological concerns.
Moreover, the Committee wants to promote the adoption of appropriate
methodologies for developing countries by education and by training.
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Research
Agenda
Although not explicitly mentioned in the topics
listed below, it is worth noting that regional and climatic characteristics
have to be considered as well as the social structures and the economic
circumstances under which water management is carried out.
Interdisciplinary research: Improved
collaboration among hydraulic engineers, hydraulicians, regional
planners, economists and ecologists is essential. It will also assist
in improved communication among these disciplines which have their
own jargon and methodological approaches. It is essential to ensure
the transfer of data and results required by other disciplines for
further analysis. Another important aspect is to demonstrate how
hydrologic uncertainties are transformed into uncertainties in the
impacts. This will contribute to better assessment of the vulnerability
of the social and environmental systems affected by water management.
Water resources management under increasing
uncertainty: The ongoing debate about climate change has
raised questions about possible effects of such a change on the
hydrological environment in different regions. Research must address
the uncertainty about future hydrological conditions under which
a water resource project will have to operate.
But water resources are also affected by several other anthropogenic
impacts. One of the most important and direct impacts is from modified
land use which in turn is often dependent and stimulated by the
availability of water and its management. These feedback mechanisms,
not sufficiently monitored and understood, contribute substantially
to an increase in uncertainty about the availability and quality
of water supplies.
Research will be initiated to improve the scientific knowledge about
the linkages between climate, land use and the hydrological system
under different climatic settings. This in turn will assist in the
reassessment of operation principles currently being applied. Sustainability,
resilience and adaptability supersede optimality, defined in the
traditional economic sense, as the decision criteria.
Conflict resolution in water management:
Water, as an increasingly scarce resource, is already and
will become more frequently the subject of conflicts. Different
types of conflicts are observed which refer either to conflicts
among interest groups like water resources developers and ecologists,
or to unbalanced utilisation of water among upstream and downstream
users or even transboundary conflicts among users sharing the same
resource are occurring.
In general, the objective is to develop methodologies for emergency
management and conflict resolution strategies. The methodology of
multi-objective evaluation and decision-making is quite well developed
but the application in real life problems is lacking. Such techniques
could at least contribute to defining the scope of the problem and
the set of alternatives in a rational framework and could therefore
assist to compromise decision-making. For larger conflicts, methodologies
are being developed which will contribute to improved understanding
of problems and the consequences of any decision and will therefore
support rational conflict resolution. The transfer of these techniques
from the academic world to applied water management has to be encouraged
and carefully reviewed. Decision-makers also need to be able to
identify the possibilities of non-structural measures for the remediation
of problems, including emergency management and conflicts among
different water uses and users.
Methods for supporting negotiations for water allocation should
be developed and tested for international, national and regional
application. A methodological framework for comprehensive environmental
risk and impact assessment must be developed to quantify the vulnerability
and resilience of the environment.
Non-structural water management:
The investment costs for flood protection are often correlated with
costs from flood damage because land use in the protected areas
is intensified and new housing areas are developed. Proper flood
protection not only requires the correct design of levees, but also
land development plans and restrictions imposed on the utilisation
of the former flood plain. Guidelines have to be developed otherwise
catastrophic events like the recent ones in the Odra and Rhine basin
will become more frequent.
Non-structural flood control measures such as real time forecasting
and flood warning systems, flood plain zoning, subsidised insurance
and relocation are alternatives to structural measures that should
be investigated. The analysis would have to asses advanced communication
in flood warning systems for the fast and effective dissemination
of information, flood emergency plans including evacuation of people
exposed to major risks, the potential of temporary flood protection
measures and finally, the willingness of the population to accept
such an approach.
Urban water management: Separately
from the activities of the IAHR Committee of Urban Water Management,
the goals listed below refer to general aspects of urban water management
with the emphasis on large agglomerations, which often develop in
an uncontrolled way. Urban drainage, water supply, solid waste and
sewage treatment and disposal are components of urban water management
that must be adequately integrated in order to cope with the increasing
demands for municipal and industrial water uses.
Most urban centres in the developing world still lack adequate facilities
for the proper collection and disposal of domestic and industrial
wastes. Only about half of the urban population in developing countries
has access to sewage disposal systems. Most of the existing collecting
systems discharge directly into receiving waters without any treatment.
Due to budgetary constraints as well as inefficient institutional
and administrative settings millions of people in developing countries
have taken direct responsibility for their water supply and try
to do so with extremely limited resources. A typical example is
in the uncontrolled development in large agglomerations where people
individually exploit the limited water resources to cover their
basic needs and at the same time endanger the resource itself by
untreated waste water. The development of basic low-cost technical
tools for water supply and treatment combined with the training
of local self-organised groups could substantially reduce harmful
impacts on the water resource.
In the industrialised countries, the large agglomerations have to
cover their water requirements by exploiting neighbouring regions
to such an extent that the water balance of large aquifers and karstic
systems is endangered. At the same time the pollution of the groundwater
bodies within the cities is often poorly monitored because of the
limited use of this resource in urban areas.
Taking into account that the trend of urban population concentration
increase will continue in the future and mainly in less developed
countries, a programme for encompassing all hydrologic, ecological
and water-related socio-economic aspects of urban planning and management
should be developed.
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Committee Officers
Leadership Team
Chair
Vice Chair
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Dr. Young-Oh Kim
Associate Professor
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Seoul National University
599 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Korea
Phone: +82-2 880-8916
Fax: +82-2-887-0349
E-mail: yokim05@snu.ac.kr |
Members
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Carlos de Oliveira Galvão
Brazil
E-mail: galvao@dec.ufcg.edu.br |
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Prof. Phillippe Gourbesville
France
E-mail: Philippe.GOURBESVILLE@unice.fr |
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Prof. T. Kojiri
Kyoto University, Water Resources Research Center
Disaster Preventions Research Institute
Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, JAPAN
phone: +81 774 38 4269
+81 774 38 4269
fax: +81 774 32 3093
e-mail: tkojiri@wrcs.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp |
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Elpida Kolokytha
Assistant Professor
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Dept. of Civil Engineering
Division of Hydraulics & Environmental Enigineering
54124 Thessaloniki
Greece
Tel. +30-2310-994169
Fax +30-2310-994310
E-mail: lpcol@civil.auth.gr |
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Ramesh Teegavarapu
USA
E-mail: ramesh@civil.fau.edu |
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Publications
- Integrated Water Resources Management under a Changing World. A special issue of Physics and Chemistry of the Earth published by the Water Resources Committee of IAHR.
Guest Editors: P.Gourbesville, P.P.Mujumdar, and T.Kojiri. Link
- Int. Seminar on Water Resources Management, Ilorin,
Nigeria, July 28-August 4, 1984 Members: NLG 136,-; Non-members:
NLG 170,-. From A.A. Balkema Publishers, P.O. Box 1675, 3000 BR
Rotterdam, The Netherlands telephone: +31-10-414 58 22; fax +31-10-413
59 47
- Int. Symposium on Water for the Future. Water
Resources Development in Perspective, Rome, Italy, April 6-11,
1987. Paperback. Members NLG 105,-; Non-members: NLG 130,-. From
IAHR Secretariat Hardbound. Members NLG 164,-; Non-members: NLG
205,-. From A.A. Balkema Publishers.
- Int. Conference on Application of Geographic
Information Systems in Hydrology and Water Resources Management,
HydroGIS 1996, Vienna, Austria, April 16-19, 1996. From Prof.H.P.
Nachtnebel, IWHW, Institute for Water Management & Hydraulic.
Eng., University for Natural Resources Management, Nussdorfer
Lände 11, A-1190 Vienna, Austria
- 3rd General Conference for FRIEND, FRIEND '97,
Ljublana, Slovenia, September 30-October 3, 1997. From Pierre
Hubert, Ecole de Mines de Paris, 35 rue Saint-Honoré, 77305
Fontainebleau, France
- Stochastic hydraulics 2000 - Proceedings of
the 8th international symposium on stochastic hydraulics ISSH2000,
Beijing, China, 25-28 July 2000, 25 cm, 916 pp., ISBN: 90 5809
166 X Wang, Z.Y. / Hu, Shi-Xiong (eds):
EUR 95,- / $ 95,00
- 7th IAHR Int. Symposium on Stochastic Hydraulics
'96, Mackay, Queensland, Australia, 29-31 July, 1996. Central
Queensland University, Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia. Ed.K.S.
tickle, I.C. Goulter, Chengchao Xu, S. Wasimi, F. Bouchard. Members
NLG 180,-; Non-members NLG 225,-. From A.A. Balkema Publishers.
Reports
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