Water is a scarce and finite resource with no substitute, and upon which the very existence of life on earth depends. The challenges facing water resources are daunting. The Millennium Development Goals aim, inter alia, at reducing by half, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Although progress thus far is not encouraging, it is hoped that necessary actions will be taken to achieve this goal during the remaining period. Such actions include financial, institutional, and legal measures. Indeed, without the appropriate legal framework, the ability of the state to regulate, control, and allocate its water resources is hampered; its role in ensuring their efficient and proper use is hindered; and its right to protect those resources is challenged. This study of the regulatory frameworks for water resources management examines water legislation in sixteen jurisdictions, and highlights, in a comparative manner, the key elements needed for an effective regulatory framework. Chapter 1 traces the relevance and importance assigned to water legislation by the different international conferences and forums...

The challenges facing the water sector in Egypt are enormous and require the mobilization of all resources and the management of these resources in an integrated manner. Changes in the way water resources are currently allocated and managed are inevitable. Accordingly, a National Water Resources Plan for Egypt (NWRP) was launched. The NWRP is a comprehensive document which describes how Egypt will safeguard its water resources in the future, both with respect to quantity and quality, and how it will use these resources in the best way from a socio-economic and environmental point of view. The NWRP needs to be augmented by a transitional strategy including further reform interventions which ensure smooth and enhanced streamlining with Integrated Water Resources Management principles and approaches. The current integrated water resources management plan (IWRM Plan) has been prepared to serve the later concerns and is intended to be a complementary, action-oriented, implementation framework to the NWRP. It addresses the gaps in NWRP and provides for additional measures and provisions which facilitate the transition towards an integrated management approach within the water sector. The IWRM Plan assesses the current water resources management setup and practices along with the ongoing reform efforts led by the MWRI. The Plan identifies the actions agreed upon as major interventions to pursue an effective integrated framework for water management over the next 15 years. Thirty Nine actions falling under 11 major categories are proposed: Institutional reform and strengthening; policies and legislations; physical interventions; capacity building; technological and information systems; water quality; economic and financial framework; research; raising awareness for IWRM; monitoring and evaluation; and trans-boundary cooperation.

This two-volume report seeks to examine key issues and strategic concerns regarding water resources management (WRM) at the national and transboundary levels in the South Eastern Europe (SEE) region, documents the approach adopted by the SEE countries to address their water challenges, identifies ways of strengthening both WRM regimes and international cooperation to optimize resources management, and makes recommendations for future action. Most of the analysis and assessment included in the report is based on the brief Country Water Notes and Country Water Fact Sheets presented in Volume 2. These notes provide a brief description of the socioeconomic and geographical context and development objectives pursued in each country and their implications for water resources management. WRM includes such crosscutting issues, such as river basin management, flood and watershed management monitoring, institutional management, inter-sectoral water allocation, and water quality management. Volume 1 comprises four chapters. Chapter 1 is a description of the water resource base at the regional level. It includes an assessment of past and present trends in water use by sector. Chapter 2 analyzes key water issues in each of the focus countries...

This two-volume report seeks to examine key issues and strategic concerns regarding water resources management (WRM) at the national and transboundary levels in the South Eastern Europe (SEE) region, documents the approach adopted by the SEE countries to address their water challenges, identifies ways of strengthening both WRM regimes and international cooperation to optimize resources management, and makes recommendations for future action. Most of the analysis and assessment included in the report is based on the brief Country Water Notes and Country Water Fact Sheets presented in Volume 2. These notes provide a brief description of the socioeconomic and geographical context and development objectives pursued in each country and their implications for water resources management. WRM includes such crosscutting issues, such as river basin management, flood and watershed management monitoring, institutional management, inter-sectoral water allocation, and water quality management. Volume 1 comprises four chapters. Chapter 1 is a description of the water resource base at the regional level. It includes an assessment of past and present trends in water use by sector. Chapter 2 analyzes key water issues in each of the focus countries...

The purpose of this report is to assess the climate change impacts on water resources in Romania from an integrated, multi-sectoral perspective, and to recommend priority actions for addressing the identified risks and opportunities. The analysis is presented from an integrated water resources perspective, thereby including all pertinent water-related sectors, viz. municipal water supply and sanitation, industrial water supply, agriculture, energy generation, environment, and disaster management. More details on specific water-related aspects can be found in the companion rapid assessment reports for the energy, urban, and agricultural and rural development sectors. The recommended priority actions are presented in the context of consideration for possible financing under the operational programs funded by the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) in 2014-2020 planning horizon. This analysis is based on the available information on the current status of water resources sector in Romania, along with the existing knowledge on the anticipated impacts of climate change in this sector.

The proper management of water resources plays a key role in the socioeconomic development of Armenia. On average, Armenia has sufficient water resources. Taking into account all available water resources in the country, Armenia has sufficient resources to supply approximately 3,100 cubic meters per capita per year well above the typically cited Falkenmark water stress indicator of 1,700 cubic meters per capita per year. These water resources are not evenly divided in space and time with significant seasonal and annual variability in river runoff. In order to address temporal variations in river runoff, the country has built 87 dams with a total capacity of 1.4 billion cubic meters. Most of these dams are single purpose, mainly for irrigation. Armenia also has considerable groundwater resources, which play an important role in the overall water balance. About 96 percent of the water used for drinking purposes and about 40 percent of water abstracted in the country comes from groundwater. Irrigation remains the largest consumptive user.

(Bibliography) Includes bibliographical references.; Prepared by Warren Viessman and Christopher K. Caudill.; At head of title: 94th Congress, 2d session. Committee print.; (Statement of Responsibility) prepared by the Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, at the request of Frank Church, Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy Research and Water Resources of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, March 1976.

(Bibliography) Bibliography.; Includes text, notes, graph, and statistical table.; (Funding) Map series (Florida. Bureau of Geology) ;; (Statement of Responsibility) by Henry G. Healy ; prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, Bureau of Water Resources Management.

(Bibliography) Bibliography.; In upper margin: United States Department of the Interior, Geological Survey.; Includes text, inset, graph, and 6 statistical tables.; (Funding) Map series (Florida. Bureau of Geology) ;; (Statement of Responsibility) by Larry J. Slack ; prepared in cooperation with the Bureau of Water Resources Management, Florida Department of Environmental Regulation.

Includes text and 2 insets: "Depth to top of the Floridan Aquifer in Florida," and "Potentiometric surface, Floridan Aquifer."; (Funding) Map series (Florida. Bureau of Geology) ;; (Statement of Responsibility) by L. V. Causey and G. W. Leve ; prepared by United States Geological Survey in cooperation with Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, Bureau of Water Resources Management.

(Bibliography) Bibliography.; Includes text, notes, 2 insets, and table of water composition data.; (Funding) Map series (Florida. Bureau of Geology) ;; (Statement of Responsibility) by G. G. Phelps ; prepared by United States Geological Survey in cooperation with Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, Bureau of Water Resources Management.

The study reviews the challenges water resources management faces, and the opportunities for policy formulation towards sustainable development in Argentina, where regardless of prudent public finances management, water resources management remain disproportionately backward compared to regional, and international best practices. Hence, within a frame of reference on the country's population, institutions, and legal framework, the study examines the current, accelerated degradation of water quality, where arsenic and nitrate pollution are found in groundwater, a main source of drinking water supply in some rural areas, aggravated by the uncontrolled dumping of raw wastewater in urban areas. The uses, and management of drinking water, and sewage are analyzed, revealing eighty-one percent of urban populations are connected to drinking water networks, and only thirty-eight percent to sewer networks. Upon review of the irrigation sector, which accounts for seventy percent of all extractions of water consumption uses...

This report looks at, and beyond, the management hydrological variability to interventions aimed at decreasing the vulnerability of the economy to these shocks. It helps clarify linkages between the country's economic performance and its water resources endowment and management. It then uses this analysis to recommend both water resource strategies and economic and sectoral policies that will enhance growth and insulate the Ethiopian people and economy from the often devastating, economy-wide effects of water shocks. This report finds that unmitigated hydrological variability currently costs the economy over one third of its growth potential. The very structure of the Ethiopian economy with its heavy reliance on rainfed subsistence agriculture makes it particularly vulnerable to hydrological variability. Its current extremely low levels of hydraulic infrastructure and limited water resources management capacity undermine attempts to manage variability. These circumstances leave Ethiopia's economic performance virtually hostage to its hydrology.

This report presents the outcome of the World Bank's analytical and advisory work to assess the status of water resources development and the key water issues and challenges facing the country. The Bank has also reviewed its history of cooperation with the Government of China in recent decades, and notes the remarkable achievements China has made in developing the water sector. The report proposes solutions for tackling the enormous challenges facing China in the sector. The central priority is to ensure sustainable utilization and management of water, land and related resources at the national, basin, regional and local levels. Despite relatively poor endowments of land and water by international standards, China's economy has developed extremely rapidly over the last three decades, supporting 21 percent of the world's population with 9 percent of the world's arable land and only 6 percent of the world's water while simultaneously lifting some 400 million people out of poverty. It is noted in the national water resources master plan recently completed by the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) that China's water resources are under stress from the combined demands of agriculture...

China has very serious water problems despite substantial economic development achievements, strong technical expertise, and political stability. But in terms of its potential and the critical pressing needs for water resources management, China could do much better in managing its water resources. The World Bank's assistance to China in water resources development and management in the past has tended to be reactive and downstream in the project cycle. However, this approach has significantly limited the potential benefits of Bank assistance to China which a more upstream approach, based on a strategic partnership, could provide. The overall strategic objective is to improve water resources management. This strategy paper identifies China's principal water resource challenges, what China is already doing, and how the Bank can assist in the future. The large size of the Bank's water portfolio and the urgency of the problems, demand a strategic framework for the Bank's support to China. In 2002, the Bank and the Chinese Government are cooperating on the evaluation of the last...

The country water resources assistance strategy for Zambia provides an analysis of the role of water in the economy and identifies the specific challenges, development opportunities and policies which inform an agreed framework for priority areas of assistance. Zambia lies entirely within the catchments of the Zambezi and Congo rivers and all internal runoff is shared by downstream and parallel riparian countries. This strategic geographic position in the upper reaches of both these catchments provides an important context for any water resources development. Zambia has played an important role in development of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) revised protocol on shared water courses (2000) and is engaged in the process of developing co-operative mechanisms with riparian states. However, the existing legal framework explicitly excludes any provisions for addressing issues on shared waters in the Zambezi and Luapula rivers, along with that portion of the Luangwa River which constitutes the boundary between Zambia and Mozambique. These account for more than 60 percent of Zambia's water resources. Economic development is undermined by physical scarcity of water. Despite the relative abundance...

The Water Resources Sector Strategy (WRSS) supports implementation of the Bank's 1993 Water Resources Management Policy, using the experience updated internationally, with water resources and management. This country Water Resources Assistance Strategy (CWRAS) identifies the Philippines principal water resource challenges, the current situation, how the Bank is assisting at present, and what it should in the future. In summary this strategy can be summarized as follows: 1) Bank assistance should translate the rhetoric of water conservation, and sustainability, into practical-realistic programs, and policies; 2) focus should be on promoting cooperation of local government units (LGUs), and water users themselves, and, on following a "bottom-up and top-down" approach, that includes active participation of water users, in addition to developing infrastructure, and management into water resources projects; 3) water resource management (WRM) initiatives should respect cultural practices, which have evolved to provide sustainable WRM in a micro-watershed context. Indigenous water systems provide clues to how WRM should be rooted in the socio-cultural context; and...

Mozambique's continuous efforts to sustain economic growth and reduce poverty face a number of constraints including its economic and political history, and its geography and climatic conditions. It is widely accepted that future economic growth of the country will continue to rely on its natural resources base and, specifically, on sustainable use of land and water resources. Mozambique has plentiful land and water resources that provide great potential for the production of a variety of crops, livestock development and industrial growth. However, high climate variability resulting in frequent recurrent droughts and floods, limited water resources availability in the most developed southern part of the country, high dependency on international water resources and very limited water management infrastructure result in the economy being highly vulnerable to water shocks and water being a constraint on growth and poverty reduction. The development of Mozambique Country Water Resources Assistance Strategy (CWRAS) was complementary to the Bank Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) process supporting its approach and priorities. It is consistent with the country's development priorities as defined in Second Poverty Reduction Support Strategy (PARPA II) and the sector priorities identified in the national water resources management strategy. The CWRAS' recommendations build upon the Bank's specific strengths vis-a-vis other development donors and...