Workshop 06: Managing Water Resources in the Mediterranean Region: A Challenging Matter for the 21st Century
Abstract
Today, there is an urgent need for a global restructuring of water resources policies in the Mediterranean region to ensure better protection against extreme water events, severe chocks, uncertainties and global warming, to meet industrialization and urbanization demands and population growth, and to control water resources and environmental pollution due to increased agricultural and industrial production needs and increasing supply and sanitation needs. Thus, it is important to define an efficient water resources management strategy to emphasize the dynamic and change-oriented nature of the process. The idea is not to create a traditional water plan or policy covering water development and management actions to be taken like in the past, but to develop a dynamic framework that will encourage better planning and decision making on an on-going basis. In an effort to encourage a move towards more sustainable approaches to water development and managem ent, the workshop calls for all Mediterranean countries to craft the principle of Integrated Water Resources Management and mechanisms and water efficiency strategies. Practical questions, issues and concerns are to be addressed: How can negotiations be set-up and facilitated between users? How can conflicts be avoided or solved? How can new organizations be established, based on participation and sustainability principles? What are the appropriate levels and scales for such establishment? How can new institutions be introduced, while matching past or traditional ones? What role can economic tools play? How should different underlying objectives (e.g. social equity, economic efficiency and environmental conservation) be combined within a coherent implementation framework? What are the prospects for irrigation and rural utilizations? Etc.
The main goal of the workshop is thus to determine research developments and to identify gaps between current knowledge on Water Resources Management and future demand.
Description
Since early civilization, accessibility to water has been of great concern to public authorities. Important distribution aqueducts were built to supply water to concentrated populations. Such early water supply systems consisted of several elements that were both sophisticated and at the same time low-cost, made with simple technology and easy to maintain. The urban water systems also reflected the social aspects of each society and in general, water was distributed according to social criteria.
In modern civilizations, people continue to view water as an essential public good and public authorities remain responsible for its harvest and distribution among the population and different water consumers. In most countries of the world, large infrastructures continue to be built to improve the accessibility of water for the population as well as to develop adequate sewage collection and disposal. Today, these infrastructures and their maintenance are extremely expensive.
However, treating water as a public good like in the past has greatly contributed to water scarcity in many areas. Economists have called for regulation on the demand side so as to stop the hemorrhaging of water resources, instead of investing in additional reservoirs and pumping installations. Yet, this type of reasoning is far from prevalent in the minds of those consumers who benefit from favorable water tariffs, which contribute to the overexploitation of water resources in regions where water scarcity prevails. These distortions necessarily lead to a non-optimal use of the resource among consumers.
In different Mediterranean areas, current and increasing water consumption levels are expected to lead to large water deficits in the near future. Demand for piped water appears to be rising inexorably due to persistent demographic growth, increasing urbanization, and some marked distortions in the treatment of economic sectors, such as grants to agriculture or some strategic industries. But supplies are finite, and existing resource are becoming depleted: only so many reservoirs can be built and rivers tapped. And long before these physical limits are reached, the purely economic costs of new supply will rise greatly (investments in new storage, treatment and distribution capacity). Moreover, such investments can do great damage to the natural environment. Extra water supply must therefore be treated less and less as an essential public good, and more and more as an economic commodity with an efficient pricing policy. The alternative is economic and ecological waste, with too much costly investment in new capacity.
Also, adverse climatic conditions are expected to occur more frequently in the future with the onset of global warming, which will bring reduced precipitation in addition to higher temperatures . Water scarcity is expected to rise in the Mediterranean, greatly increasing the need for efficient water allocation systems. Efficiency requires that the majority of water consumers is metered, and pay a "marginal price" for each extra cubic meter consumed, since only this provides a true incentive to avoid wasting water. However, a compromise must be reached between efficiency and at least three other often conflicting objectives: raising revenue to cover the water utility's costs, administrative simplicity, and fairness. The main long-term challenge in developing water pricing is thus to find politically and socially acceptable ways of increasing the marginal price of water to reflect the true cost of extra water. Acceptability will require that charges are fair and affordable, that pricing is still reasonably simple, and that total revenues still cover total costs.
Public authorities have had difficulties reforming pricing rules for water demand . Efficient pricing policies are almost absent in most Mediterranean countries, and current water pricing systems are much distorted, leading to large deficits and over-consumption of water. Furthermore, public authorities are facing wide investment needs driven by obsolete and worn out pipeline systems on the one hand and by the imposition of quality standards on the other . However, in many countries those investment needs are subsidized (National and International funds) which means that there is no clear link between investment levels and charges.
Today, there is an urgent need for a global restructuring of water resources policies in the Mediterranean region to ensure better protection against extreme weather events, severe shocks, and global warming, to meet the agricultural, industrialization and urbanization demands associated with population growth, and to control environmental pollution due to increased agricultural and industrial production as well as inadequate sanitation .
Rethinking water resources management in the Mediterranean region is an important issue and must be based on new concepts. Key premises are the notions of "sustainable development", "integrated management" and "subsidiarity". In fact, it is a necessity today to establish a framework for action in Mediterranean Countries in the field of water policy and water resource management, by setting new goals for the status of the region’s water bodies and by introducing new means and processes for achieving those goals. The new approach must integrate the ecological, economic and social aspects of water policy at the level of river basins. The main objectives are to protect and improve the Mediterranean's aquatic environment and to make a contribution to sustainable, balanced and equitable water use. All waters (surface, underground and coastal) ought to attain the goal of a good and non-deteriorating status. In the countries that belong to the European Union, the Water Framework Directive already provides a legal framework for this goal.
The means of achieving good water quality status are organization and planning at a hydrologic (river basin) level and implementation of a number of pollution-control measures . Each river basin plan is to include a number of mandatory economic, legal and social measures. The Mediterranean Countries should consider the principle of full recovery of costs (operational, capital and environmental/resource) of water services and apply economic concepts such as the "polluter pays principle", adopt approaches and tools based on cost-effectiveness analysis and consider economic instruments like incentive water pricing. The contribution of economic instruments in environmental policies promotes the use of water charging to act as an incentive for the sustainable use of water resources and to recover the costs of water services by economic sector. This will contribute to meeting the environmental objective in a cost-effective way. Nonetheless, social, environmental and economic considerations as well as climatic and geographical differences have to be taken into account.
As water resources become scarcer, a better water resource management strategy is needed to emphasize the dynamic and change-oriented nature of the process . The idea is not to create traditional water plans or policies covering water development and management actions to be taken like in the past, but rather to develop a dynamic framework that will encourage better planning and decision making on an on-going basis. In an effort to encourage a move towards more sustainable approaches to water development and management, the workshop calls for all Mediterranean countries to apply the principle of Integrated Water Resources Management, improve management mechanisms, and develop water efficiency strategies. Such strategies are intended to support countries in their efforts to:
1. Meet development goals, such as reducing poverty, increasing food security, fostering economic growth, protecting ecosystems.
2. Tackle specific water challenges, such as controlling floods, mitigating the effects of drought, expanding access to water and sanitation, and addressing increasing competition for water and water scarcity.
Practical questions, issues and concerns are to be addressed, including: How can negotiations be set-up and facilitated between users, both within countries and across transboundary basins? How can conflicts be avoided or solved? How can new organizations be established, based on participation and sustainability principles? What are the appropriate levels and scales for such organizations? How can new institutions be introduced, while matching past or traditional ones? What role can economic tools play? How should different underlying objectives (e.g. social equity, economic efficiency and environmental conservation) be combined within a coherent implementation framework? What are the prospects for irrigation and rural utilizations?
The main goal of the workshop is thus to ascertain research developments and to identify gaps between current knowledge on Water Resource Management and future demand. It is crucial to understand the institutional, cultural, social, technical, financial and economic contexts in which water reform has to take place. To achieve this, the organization will provide a multi-disciplinary platform for researchers and decision-makers to exchange their views and research results on a wide range of topics, to discuss and share their knowledge and experience. The emphasis is on water management for sustainable development through proper governance, institutions and policies. Both theoretical and applied contributions are expected and warmly invited from the following fields:
1. Extreme water events: floods, pollution spills, droughts, risk and uncertainties.
2. Water related natural processes: climate changes, erosion, and desertification.
3. Water uses and balancing objectives: agriculture, industry, urban.
4. Water supply and sanitation: efficient management, supply and disposal alternatives.
5. Water resource systems: planning and management, economic instruments.
6. Water and development: poverty, health, education, financing issues.
7. Water management organizations and society: water law, water governance.
8. Water conflicts and cooperation: collective action, participation, negotiation.
9. Water sustainability: over-exploitation, pollution control, ecological status.
Page last updated on 04 September 2018