Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and Disaster Reduction

1
Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and
Disaster Reduction

• Chris Hartnady Rowena Hay
• Umvoto Africa (Pty) Ltd

Africa Regional Consultation on Disaster
Reduction Johannesburg, 2-3 June 2004
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Water Cycle Science

• Understand fluxes and storage of water as it
  moves through the hydrologic cycle associated
  fluxes of solutes, sediments, and energy
• Monitor and understand change, if any, in the
  quantity and quality of water
• Test hypotheses and models, formulate new
  hypotheses (traditional scientific use)

3
Water-related (Geo)Hazards

• Floods (Hydrometeorological hazard)
• Extreme precipitation events and/or river
  flooding
• Coastal storm surge
• Dam failure
• Ground Instability
• Landslides and mass-wasting (water-induced)
• Subsidence and collapse
• Carbonate dissolution
• Fluid withdrawal
• Earthquakes (fluid pressure-triggered)
• Droughts and desertification
• Global climate change (effects on hydrological
  cycle)

4
Flood cause and consequence

• Sudden-onset wide area event triggered by extreme
  
• weather - river flooding at Ashton, Western Cape,
  RSA March 2003

5
Integrated Water Resources Management

• IWRM (inception at 1992 Dublin conference)
• people- and environment-focused, holistic
  paradigm by which to regulate and manage water
• breaks down boundaries of sector, scale and
  discipline to ensure that water is managed
• at the most appropriate level
• by the most appropriate people
• in a manner that acknowledges the rights of other
  uses and users
• (Whiskey is for drinking, but water is for
  fighting over)

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Eight Dublin principles

1. Conserve and protect water sources and catchments
   as essential to life, health and socio-economic
   productivity
2. Agree on fair and equitable water allocations
   between stakeholders within broad national
   framework
3. Manage at lowest appropriate level
4. Build human capacity as key to resource
   sustainability
5. Involve all stakeholders actively at all stages
6. Use water efficiently (often an important
   source in itself )
7. Value water as both economic and social good
8. Strike a gender balance in water management

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IWRM philosophy

• IWRM is a philosophy of co-ordinated management
  of an areas water, land and other resources to
  maximize economic and social welfare in an
  equitable manner without compromising the
  sustainability of the resource and vital
  ecosystems
• South African Department of Water Affairs and
  Forestry (DWAF) brochure

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Disaster Reduction

• World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction
  (May 1994, Yokohama Japan) adopted Yokohama
  Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World,
  based on ten principles
• 2nd WCDR (Kobe, Japan, January 2005) provides
  opportunity for a comprehensive review of the
  Yokohama Strategy

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Principles of Yokohama Strategy

1. Risk assessment a required step for DR
2. Disaster prevention and preparedness (DPP) of
   primary importance
3. DPP integral aspects of development policy and
   planning all levels
4. Capacities to prevent, reduce and mitigate
   disasters a top priority
5. Early warnings of impending disasters, effective
   dissemination, key factors
6. Effective community participation at all levels
7. Vulnerability reduced by proper design and
   patterns of development, appropriate community
   education and training
8. International community to share necessary
   technology, freely available in timely manner, as
   integral part of technical cooperation
9. Environmental protection as component of
   sustainable development consistent with poverty
   alleviation, imperative
10. Each country bears primary responsibility for
    protecting people, infrastructure, other national
    assets. International community should mobilize
    adequate resources, bearing in mind needs of
    developing countries, particularly least
    developed countries

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Linking IWRM and Disaster Reduction

• Dublin (D) and Yokohama (Y) intersections
• Integration of (resource) development-planning
  and risk-assessment processes (D1, D7, Y1, Y3,
  Y7, Y9)
• Prioritization of prevention and preparedness
  (D1,Y2-Y7)
• Emphasis on cooperation and communication at all
  levels (D1, D2, D5, D8, Y6, Y8)
• Importance of building human capacity (D4, D8,
  Y4, Y7)
• Implicit need for conflict resolution (D2, D5,
  Y6, Y7)

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Possible Flagship Project(s)

• Link to IGOS-P Geohazards Theme
• Precipitation / geosphere moisture content
  related to climate change, provides triggering
  mechanism for landslides and other ground
  deformations
• Deep groundwater infiltration triggers strong
  earthquakes in Southern African neotectonic zones
  (e.g., Kariba)
• Integration of Southern African weather, climate,
  hydro(geo)logical, space-geodetic seismological
  observing systems, along with satellite
  remote-sensing and geo-informatics technologies,
  is required
• Cross-cutting collaborations possible with IGOS-P
  Water Cycle Theme (floods) and Ocean Theme
  (tsunamis and coastal flooding)

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Existing platform?

• SA Dept of Land Affairs TrigNet Array
• Continuous GPS
• often co-located with weather stations
• can monitor
• crustal motions to mm/yr precision
• water vapour in troposphere

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GEO initiative

• Ad-hoc Group on Earth Observation
• Co-chaired by South Africa (DST), with
  developing nation interests, following WSSD
• Aims to establish a Global Earth Observation
  System of Systems
• UN/ISDR is observer member of GEO
• Water and Disasters are among 9 focus topics
  in current activities of GEOSS Implementation
  Plan Task Team (IPTT)
• Flood forecasting and an integrated
  (satellite-based, ground-calibrated) global
  monitoring system for droughts among priority
  requirements

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Flood forecasting

• the costliest and deadliest hazards worldwide
  
• Warning and protection systems incorporate
  geostationary satellite precipitation fields in
  conjunction with hydrological models,
  statistically calibrated to particular locations
• Maximizing effectiveness of precipitation
  observations in flood prediction
• near real-time instantaneous microwave and
  auxiliary (microwave-calibrated
  geosynchronousinfrared, etc.) rain products at
  the sensor resolution
• uncertainty characterization of instantaneous
  microwave precipitation products

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IWRM and Groundwater

• Groundwater resources provide alternative
  decentralised approaches to water supply, which
• generally existed before big (surface-water)
  schemes and projects involving large-scale
  damming of river systems
• were often replaced and rendered dysfunctional by
  major surface-water supply projects
• are now finding their way back into the
  mainstream of water supply options
• often are the last resort or relief under drought
  conditions

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Groundwater Climate Change

• Underground reservoirs (aquifers) are evaporation
  free and therefore will have increasing marginal
  advantage under conditions of global warming
• Most are recharged annually (artificially in rare
  cases)
• Some aquifers have potentially large, natural
  storage volume, well in excess of annual recharge
• Many can be managed conjunctively with surface
  water reservoirs (an excellent example of IWRM
  in practice DWAF, South Africa)
• UNESCO/WMO-IGRAC - General lack of information
  about groundwater resources should stimulate
  national and regional efforts in monitoring and
  assessing aquifer systems

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GRACE for Southern Africa

• Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment satellite
  mission co-PI Byron Tapley (UT Austin)
• GRACE's trump card is its ability to measure the
  changes in gravity caused by the movements of
  water. The satellites can detect changes in
  groundwater and river basins, which are crucial
  for farmers and environmental scientists. GRACE
  should be able to measure a 4-millimetre change
  in water height across the 32 million square
  kilometres of the Mississippi river basin
• Eventually, says Tapley, we will be able to
  let countries in Africa know how their aquifers
  are changing.
• National Geogaphic Magazine quote

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Water-related conflict

• Water is one of the most important ingredients
  for development and stability. Without access to
  basic water supplies, disease and ill-health,
  poverty, environmental degradation and even
  conflict may be the result all of which lead,
  in turn, to greater water stress. Water-related
  conflict does not have to take on the attributes
  of war in order to be debilitating it can
  fester between groups, ignite between
  neighbouring farmers or industrialists, and can
  cause loss of trust between people and their
  governments. When water conflict erupts between
  sovereign states, the victims may not perish on
  any clearly discernible battlefield, but the
  people and the watercourse itself will suffer the
  consequences of the absence of either
  co-operation or communication between those
  sharing a basin.  
• Mikhail Gorbachev, President of Green Cross
  International 

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End

• Thank you

Better water storage monitoring on a global
scale should also help scientists improve our
ability to predict, plan for, and respond to
extreme events, such as floods and drought Alan
Ward NASA Earth Observatory 2003 December 23
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(No Transcript)
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Dublin challenges 1-2

• Inadequate frameworks to ensure communication and
  cooperation in water source and catchment
  conservation between different sectors and
  levels. Focus remains on limited interventions
  close to source
• Reality of conflict between competing uses and
  users often glossed over. Stakeholders
• involved mostly at information, not decision
  making level
• lack good, appropriately presented
  hydro(geo)logical information essential to
  informed decision making. 

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Dublin challenges 3-4

• Unavailable / unclear / confusing frameworks for
  management at lowest appropriate level.
  Community-based approaches now accepted as norm,
  but do local governments user association have
  necessary structures and capacity?
• Uneven / ineffective / unmonitored capacity
  building. Proper monitoring essential to
  effective CB programmes
• Do they pay sufficient attention to lower and
  intermediate levels within decentralised support
  agencies?
• Are they able to fulfil role in facilitating user
  decision making? 

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Dublin challenges 5-6

• Limited / narrow-focus / uninterested
  stake-holder involvement in wider IWRM, because
  of
• high transaction costs
• lack of genuine decision-making power
• purely consultative form of community involvement
• multiple perspectives and agendas of water users
• ineffective mechanisms for conflict resolution
• Low emphasis on efficient water use
  Important to integrate demand
  management into projects and decisions. Water
  generally valued most highly where scarcest, or
  where tariff structures make waste expensive

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Dublin challenges 7-8

1. Poor perspective on role of water as social good.
   Principle of paying for water widely accepted
   and many projects introduce user charges, but
   rights of vulnerable, poverty-stricken groups
   still need protection in planning for cost
   recovery
2. Striking absence of women within staff of support
   agencies. Do we understand how gender
   encompasses other important aspects of community
   dynamics such as age, wealth, class, cast, etc.?

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Principles of Yokohama Strategy

1. Risk assessment a required step for adoption of
   adequate and successful disaster reduction
   policies and measures
2. Disaster prevention and preparedness (DPP) of
   primary importance in reducing need for disaster
   relief
3. DPP integral aspects of development policy and
   planning at national, regional, bilateral,
   multilateral and international levels
4. Development and strengthening of capacities to
   prevent, reduce and mitigate disasters a top
   priority

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Yokohama Strategy Principles (2)

1. Early warnings of impending disasters and
   effective dissemination using telecommunications,
   including broadcast services, key factors to
   successful DPP
2. Preventive measures most effective when involving
   participation at all levels, from local community
   through national government to regional and
   international level
3. Vulnerability reduced by application of proper
   design and patterns of development focused on
   target groups, by appropriate education and
   training of the whole community

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Yokohama Strategy Principles (3)

1. International community to share necessary
   technology to prevent, reduce and mitigate
   disaster made freely available in timely manner
   as integral part of technical cooperation
2. Environmental protection as component of
   sustainable development consistent with poverty
   alleviation, imperative in prevention and
   mitigation of disasters
3. Each country bears primary responsibility for
   protecting people, infrastructure, other national
   assets from impact of natural disasters

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International Community Role

1. (cont.) International community should
   demonstrate strong political determination to
   mobilize adequate and make efficient use of
   existing resources, in the field of natural
   disaster reduction, bearing in mind needs of
   developing countries, particularly least
   developed countries