Earth Today | A renewed call to prioritise integrated water resource management
Published:Thursday | March 9, 2023 | 12:29 AM
INTEGRATED WATER resources management (IWRM) has been championed as pivotal to the national and global response to climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution.
For Eleanor Jones, a sustainable development professional, IWRM – which is about the coordinated management of water, land and related resources to optimise economic and social benefits and preserve ecosystems – is especially important for Jamaica.
This, she said, is having regard to the island’s particular vulnerabilities, including to climate change impacts.
“Jamaica has embarked on an integrated water resource management plan. The Water Resources Authority did that. But in our development initiatives, we are paying scant attention to these things,” said Jones, who is also a member of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica.
“The urban centres are going to suffer and then our rural areas, which are rain-fed for the most part, have to become more efficient. It calls for partnerships among the relevant agencies for joint planning and taking particular account of water, which we need for health, for food and for domestic purposes,” she added.
Jones’ comments come in the wake of statements made by Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), speaking recently at the World Food Programme board meeting.
“Water scarcity is a serious and growing concern … We need water for people, water for food, water for industry, but also water for nature. Failing the latter, we risk breaking natural cycles, interfering with soil moisture and the hydrological cycle and risking longer-term impacts for people and for planet,” Andersen said.
“Around 41 per cent of global irrigation water use is at the expense of environmental flow requirements. So, we need to get better at using ever scarcer water,” she added.
Andersen advanced collaborative efforts on IWRM along with “nature-positive, climate friendly food systems” and “resilience and adaptation through investments in nature-based solutions and early warning systems” – as key the triple planetary crisis.
Jones and Andersen’s statements come against the background of growing water challenges.
Globally, a reported 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services while almost two billion people depend on health care facilities without basic water services.
At the same time, more than half of the global population or 4.2 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services; and some 297,000 children under five die annually from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water.
These and other water-related issues are expected to come up for discussion at the United Nations Water Conference set for March 22 to 24 in New York.