Water 2030: defining and initiating pathways to address the supply-demand gap

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Future uncertainty about how we will meet water needs throughout the globe has lead to concern in the public and private sector over water resource security and strategic planning for meeting water resource need. Multiple lines of research have estimated that by 2030, the gap between water supply and water demand will exceed 40% globally, with areas that have even higher water deficits. Any solution to this impending cliff requires two things: reducing water consumption, and finding ways to creatively and flexibly produce more value out of the water we have through.

Here, we examine a report that attempt to provide strategy and guidance for meeting these water challenges by identifying potential pathways to close the water demand supply-gap for 2030.

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Matching Risks and Rewards: researcher’s goals, practitioner’s decisions, and flood risk management practices

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Flood risk management seeks to prevent and mitigate disastrous outcomes from flood events through built infrastructure, management of control devices, land-use planning, flood prediction and emergency management planning. Researchers from NCAR and the University of Colorado interviewed decision makers at multiple levels and scientists who study flood risks and prediction to better understand how flood risk research questions are studied and how actual risk management decisions are made to better inform the researchers who seek to provide the information that will improve flood risk management decision making. However, while scientists often assume that more specific scientific information that reduces uncertainty about flood timing or magnitude will lead to better flood prediction and flood management policies, the diverse group of practitioners involved in the policy and management decision process may need different information that better addresses the realities of their decision making environment.

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Narrative of Complacency: international donor perceptions and narratives helped to perpetuate irrigation system problems in Indonesia

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International donors promote the widespread adoption of various policy trends and are able to influence policy with developing countries through funding schemes. The perceptions of international donors and dominant policy narratives may not align with the development conditions at the local or national levels, which can lead to ineffective development funding and perpetuate a cycle of ineffective policy and programs. Dr. Diana Suhardiman of the International Water Management Institute and Dr. Peter Mollinga of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, examined the international donors and dominant policy narratives over the past five decades in Indonesian irrigation policy and used this detailed case study to illustrate that when national policies are strongly shaped by international trends, there is a potential that assumptions about causal mechanisms or organizational motivations may lead to financial and institutional arrangements that cannot produce the desired outcome and may perpetuate or exacerbate a negative result.

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Water Diplomacy Network: Translating Ideas and Insights into Actions for a Sustainable Water Future

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A billion people lack access to clean water. Water scarcity affects 1 in 3 people on every continent. These are sobering – but not new – and chronic water problems. One hundred years ago, Katharine Coman published “Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation” in the first issue of the American Economic Review. She used irrigation systems in the […]

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