Integrated Water Resources
Management: The Emperor’s New Clothes
or Indispensable Process?
Michael E. Campana
Past President, AWRA
Professor of Hydrogeology & Water Resources Management
Oregon State University
Western South Dakota Hydrology Meeting
9 April 2014 Rapid City, SD
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Thanks!
Introduction to IWRM Emperor & Water King
Two Recent Water Books
Background and ‘Watershed’ Events
AWRA & IWRM Activities; What is IWRM?
Oregon’s Integrated Water Resources Strategy
New Mexico Water Planning
Resources & Activities: AWRA & USACE
Misgivings: Juggernauts & Groundwater
My Take
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Brenda O. Bateman, OWRD & AWRA
Ari Michelsen, Texas A&M & AWRA
Wayne S. Wright, GeoEngineers & AWRA
Steven L. Stockton, Dir., Civil Works, USACE
Ada L. Benavides, USACE HQ
John R. Wells, MN Env. Quality Board & AWRA
Lisa Beutler, MWH Global & AWRA
John C. Tracy, Idaho WRRI & AWRA
Ken Reid, AWRA Executive VP
Dick Engberg, AWRA Technical Director
Mary F. Campana, Spouse & Librarian
Extraordinaire
He’s Baaack! The Emperor of IWRM!
Integrated Water Resources
Management: The Emperor’s New Clothes
or Indispensable Process?
The Water King’s (Emperor’s
Evil Twin) 3 Commandments!
1)“A fool and water will go
go the way they are diverted.”
– African proverb
2) “Nothing is impossible for the man
who doesn’t have to do it himself.”
3) Bottled water = $3.2M/acre-foot
(see #1)
 Born in Manhattan (NY, not KS). Grew up on Long
Island, NY. Left East for good in 1970 (one year of
penance @ GA State University in Atlanta, early 1980s)
 Undergraduate degree in Geology – College of William
& Mary in Williamsburg, VA (Class of 1970)
 Learned my water (hydrology - MS & PhD;
mathematics minor) at U. of Arizona – emphasis on
groundwater hydrology
 Spent virtually entire adult life
(1970 – 2006) living
and working (Desert Research Institute and U of NM)
in arid West (AZ, NV, CA, NM). Rehydration: western
Oregon since 2006 (c. 1 meter precipitation/year)
 International work: Central America, South Caucasus,
Central Asia, Egypt, Europe
 Favorite compliment (depending upon who says it):
‘You don’t sound like an academic!’
 1975: Finished graduate work in hydrology at U of AZ. Desert
Research Institute (1976-89); UNM (1989-2006)
 Mid-1990s: went over to “dark side” - policy, management,
etc. Hung out/worked with economists, sociologists, lawyers,
et al. Appreciated multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary
approaches to water. Married Mary Frances in 1993 (support!)
 Late 1990s: Started focusing on WaSH (water, sanitation, and
hygiene) issues in developing regions. Volunteer work with
Lifewater International and Living Water International.
 2001-2005: Started traveling with students to Honduras to
work on gravity-flow water systems. Promoted
‘hydrophilanthropy’.
 2002: Founded 501(c)(3) - Ann Campana Judge Foundation
(www.acjfoundation.org) – funds and undertakes
water/sanitation projects in Central America
 2006: Social Media – Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook; OSU
arrival; headed Institute for Water & Watersheds through 2009.
AWRA & IWRM Activities
What Is IWRM?
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Multidisciplinary AWRA: well-suited to IWRM
Held Four Water Policy Dialogues
http://is.gd/aIjto0
Water Resources IMPACT issue in May 2011;
Webinars; Two Reports
Conducted large survey of water
professionals on IWRM 2006
IWRM Policy Statement adopted 2011
Organized International Specialty
Conferences on IWRM in 2011and 2014
Established IWRM Award in 2012
What is ‘integrated? From Dictionary.com:
1. Combining or coordinating separate elements so as
to provide a harmonious, interrelated whole: an
integrated plot; an integrated course of study.
2. Organized or structured so that constituent units
function cooperatively: an integrated economy.
3. Having, including, or serving members of different
racial, religious, and ethnic groups as equals: an
integrated school. Compare segregated.
4. Sociology. Of or pertaining to a group or society
whose members interact on the basis of commonly held
norms or values.
5. Psychology. Characterized by integration.
Integrated Water Resources Management
(IWRM) is a process which promotes the
coordinated development and management of
water, land and related resources in order to
maximise economic and social welfare in an
equitable manner without compromising the
sustainability of vital ecosystems and the
environment. – Global Water Partnership
[http://is.gd/7l3kZD]
Operationally, IWRM approaches involve
applying knowledge from various
disciplines as well as insights from
diverse stakeholders to devise and
implement efficient, equitable and
sustainable solutions to water and
development problems (GWP 2000;
http://www.gwp.org/)
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Comprehensive (integrated)
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Participatory
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Planning and implementation tool
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Balances social and economic needs
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Ensures protection of ecosystems for future
generations
Oregon’s Integrated Water
Resources Strategy
Developing Oregon’s
Statewide Integrated Water Resources Strategy
Oregon’s House Bill 3369 (2009)
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Directed OWRD to lead efforts
to “understand and meet”
Oregon’s water needs”
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Partner with water quality,
fish & wildlife, agriculture,
other agencies, tribes,
stakeholders, & public
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Account for coming
pressures (climate change,
population, land use issues)
instream and out-of-stream
…quality, quantity & ecosystem needs
…today and in the future
Oregon’s Integrated Water Resources Strategy
(http://is.gd/injzOC)
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Adopted in August 2012
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Serves as Oregon’s blueprint for meeting
instream and out-of-stream needs
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Covers 13 issue areas
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Contains more than 40 recommended
actions
Researching Neighboring States
Developed a Discussion Paper & Draft Guidelines
(https://bitly.com/1ou046g)
California IRWM
Texas Regional
Planning
Washington
Watershed Planning
Our Foundation – What We Know Already
Oregon’s Place-Based IWRM Plans should:
 Recognize the public interest in water
 Maintain state authorities and responsibilities for management of water
resources; plans must comply with existing state laws and requirements
 Include a meaningful process for public involvement, with public meetings
 Include balanced representation of all interests
 Be integrated, addressing instream and out-of-stream needs, including
water quantity, water quality, and ecosystem needs
 Account for groundwater and surface water (e.g., interaction)
 Delineate and describe local population centers, key industries, and listed
fish species, among many other factors that influence the use and
management of water
2012 IWRS , p. 80-81
New Mexico Water Planning
Resources & Activities:
AWRA & USACE
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Certification program offers a
commitment to the principles
of IWRM
Standards and criteria for US
water resources projects at all
levels (fed, regional, state and
local)
Increase understanding of the
benefits of IWRM principles
and projects that meet this
approach (Congress, OMB…)
USACE expects to have
program developed by AWRA
June 2014
25
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USACE is committed to
incentivize the use of
IWRM as a holistic
approach to solve the
Nation’s water resources
challenges
10 projects will be
evaluated against criteria
A multi-purpose,
objective outcomes,
stakeholders,
basin/watershed based
criteria
November 2014 (AWRA)
26
Case Studies in
Integrated Water Resources
Management:
From Local Stewardship to
National Vision
A Report by the Policy Committee
of the American Water Resources
Association
Download: http://is.gd/3qgfZl
Additional IWRM Resources ($$):
http://is.gd/gzZcW2
Proactive Flood and
Drought Management
Report: A Selection of
Applied Strategies and
Lessons Learned from
Around the United States
A Report by the Policy Committee
of the American Water Resources
Association
Download: http://is.gd/M7hlja
Additional IWRM Resources ($$):
http://is.gd/gzZcW2
USACE Report:
Understanding
Integrated Water
Resources
Management
(IWRM)
Download:
http://is.gd/8Ih143
Watertoolbox.us
One Stop Shop
Data Portal
Leading Edge
Models and Tools
Collaboration
Connection
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June 2011- Snowbird, UT - Integrated Water
Resources Management: The Emperor’s New
Clothes or Indispensable Process?
http://is.gd/xLa7UC
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Symposium on Collaborative Modeling &
IWRM at Snowbird: http://is.gd/u4f8zp
Water Resources IMPACT issue:
http://is.gd/21QTGj
Summer 2014 Conference: IWRM – From
Theory to Application, 30 June – 2 July, Reno,
NV http://is.gd/THmAha
Misgivings: Juggernauts &
Groundwater
◦ 'From IWRM Back to Integrated Water Resources
Management’ paper by Mark Giordano & Tushaar Shah
(http://is.gd/CpBt1h) An IWRM juggernaut?
“Integrated water resources management provides a set of ideas
to help us manage water more holistically. However, these ideas
have been formalized over time in what has now become, in
capitals, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), with
specific prescriptive principles whose implementation is often
supported by donor funding and international advocacy. IWRM has
now become an end in itself, in some cases undermining
functioning water management systems, in others setting back
needed water reform agendas, and in yet others becoming a tool to
mask other agendas. Critically, the current monopoly of IWRM in
global water management discourse is shutting out alternative
thinking on pragmatic solutions to existing water problems.”
IWRM – key aspects:
•Sustainability
•Watershed is often used as the
‘management unit’
Groundwater:
•Sustainably pumped?
•Boundaries?
•Nonrenewability – an issue
•Limited replenishment (recharge)
•Limited replenishment, large
storage
•Replenished, but over long time
scales
•Water is mined (abstraction > R)
•Polluted
•‘Decoupled’ from hydrologic cycle
My Take
•Use of the watershed scale and sustainability
requirement could preclude inclusion of
nonrenewable groundwater in IWRM.
•However, as water resources become further
stressed by climate change, population growth, etc.,
nonrenewable groundwater will become more
important as a water source, if only as a buffer or
temporary supply.
•Recommendation: We do need to consider NR GW
as a component of IWRM and devise ways to
manage it, perhaps in conjunction with Managed
Aquifer Recharge (MAR).
You can certainly (and should) support and practice integrated
water resources management without buying into the IWRM
juggernaut. If you want to call what you do IWRM, I don't have a
problem with that. To me, IWRM is an abbreviation describing a
process.
I like how Giordano and Shah conclude their paper:
"As Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues concluded a decade ago: (1)
there is no one best system for governing water resources; and (2)
many more viable options exist for resource management than
envisioned in much of the policy literature. (Ostrom, Stern, & Dietz,
2003). We need to put the problems first and then work to find
pragmatic solutions, whether they use IWRM principles or not." Mark Giordano and Tushaar Shah
WaterWired blog: http://www.waterwired.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/waterwired
Favorite rant –
Groundwater: The 'Rodney Dangerfield' of the
Hydrologic Cycle http://bit.ly/uYE8B1
“Water is the Rubik’s Cube of public policy.” – John
Laird, California Resources Secretary
(suggests there is a solution!)
“We learn nothing from history except that we learn
nothing from history.” – Cicero
“The road to help is paved with good intentions.”
- Tracy Baker