Half of the world is failing to manage its water resources

Over half the countries across the world aren’t sustainably managing their water resources and are unlikely to be doing so by 2030, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization.

Sustainable Development Goal 6 calls for ensuring the “availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.” Target 6.5 in particular looks at implementing integrated water resources management, or IWRM, at all levels.

IWRM, according to the Global Water Partnership, is an approach that coordinates the development and management of water, as well as land and related resources. The idea behind it is “to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems.”

With nine years left until the deadline to achieve the SDGs, 107 countries are struggling to implement this approach. Between 2017 and 2020, 55 countries made limited or no progress while 52 countries made what would be considered only moderate progress, Maxx Dilley, deputy director of the climate services department at WMO, told Devex in an email.

Given that water-related hazards, such as floods and droughts, are on the rise and the number of people experiencing water stress is expected to increase with them, the need for better water management is key.

As it stands, about 3.5 million people die each year due to inadequate water supply, sanitation, and hygiene.

“The evidence is clear [that] we need to act now on this global water crisis to prevent even harsher consequences,” Nicolas A. Franke, coordinator and program officer at WMO, said.

“At the heart of the issue is the lack of “integration” to achieve an effective IWRM, the will, and ability to manage water in a cross-cutting way to meet demands from the various economic sectors and, at the same time, ensure environmental sustainability,” Dilley said, adding that financing remains a major barrier to accelerating IWRM implementation.

According to the report, despite a 9% increase in financial pledges to tackle SDG 6, official development assistance commitments remained stable at $8.8 billion between 2015 and 2019.

The need to coordinate within and outside of a country also poses a challenge. “By its nature, sustainable management of water resources needs to happen within countries’ borders, but also with their upstream and downstream neighbours,” Dilley said.

Many countries share rivers, dams, and oceans — transboundary basins make up 60% of freshwater resources globally — but oftentimes there’s an unwillingness to coordinate on resource allocation.

Water needs to be managed at the river basin scale, Franke said, and that means countries need a platform at that level that is inclusive. “As water does not know borders, such a platform would need to go beyond national jurisdictions, adding to the complexity of managing the resource.”

While the process wasn’t without its issues, Armenia and Turkey, through a treaty, are managing to withdraw equal amounts of water from the Arpacay River and together manage the Arpacay dam through a joint commission.

“Taking an integrated approach to water management is essentially recognizing that major decisions on water allocation and use are always going to have a political dimension,” Howard Bamsey, chair of the Global Water Partnership, said.

How to achieve sustainable water management

High-level political support and investment in hydromet systems and services — those that provide weather, water, early warning, and climate information — is key, Dilley said.

More forewarning of extreme weather events could allow action to be taken to preserve existing water resources.

The report calls for policymakers, particularly those in small island developing states and countries in the developing world, to invest in IRWM as a solution to water stress and in end-to-end drought and flood early warning systems.

Bamsey said all stakeholders should also be involved in rolling out such a process from the start. “If you want to see progress toward achieving SDG 6 and the others dependent on water management, it’s really critical to make sure that everybody who has a stake in the outcome … has a stake in the process in making decisions,” he said.

But that won’t be a silver bullet, he warned.

“It’s too difficult an issue for that and you have too many trade-offs to be negotiated … but if you don’t do that you’re going to face much greater difficulty in achieving satisfactory solutions to the increasing number of water problems we face.”

“Countries that have made the most progress since 2017, for example Chile and Seychelles … have established coordination bodies with all sectors and meet regularly,” Dilley said, adding that Serbia also regularly hosts interdisciplinary training for water practitioners.

Dilley also suggested updating legal frameworks to reflect modern principles of water resources management, clarifying institutional mandates, increasing technical capacity, and improving data and information collection and management.

“Currently many countries lack reliable data and information that can be used to manage water sustainably,” Franke said. “You cannot manage what you cannot see.”

As “the SDG that makes the others live,” Bamsey said water has been put under increasing pressure by climate change and population growth. “Beyond those two compounding pressures … we have all of the old, well-established barriers to good water management, and rather than be set back by that, it’s a salutary lesson to us to strive always for better water management.”

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