Integrated River Basin Planning – Replicable ... - India Water Portal

Integrated River Basin Planning: India and the EU share experience on policy and practice
INTRODUCTION
a sustainable monitoring and evaluation system for water resources management
and establishment of an information system on water resources.
This Roadmap constitutes a blueprint for action that moves Kerala closer to its IWRM
vision, starting with immediate suggested actions to develop an IWRM plan and
thus towards adaption of IWRM principles. The IWRM Roadmap aims at identifying
interventions, milestones and indicators for development of an action plan based
on IWRM principles. The main actions identified in the Roadmap are the immediate
need for operationalization of the Pamba River Basin Authority followed by adequate
and thorough capacity building at state and local level in IWRM practices and the
development of a full IWRM Action Plan for the Pamba River.
1 Introduction
A fair amount of work is needed to align Pamba’s River Basin Authority and its working
structure to support the development and implementation of IWRM plans in the
future as well as its constraints to water resources development. Another limitation
is the insufficient enforcement of defined institutional roles and responsibilities with
respect to the Pamba River Basin Authority. Another identified weakness is the lack
of sharing of data and coordination between departments to constitute baseline
data required for planning and decision-making..
Water and Environmental Policies in the European
Union
In Annex 3 to this document, background information is provided on river basin
management in the European Union, i.e. since the early 1970s when the first
water legislation was enacted, which resulted in 2000 in the adoption of the Water
Framework Directive. It provides a framework for the protection of all water bodies
and applies a combined approach of standardised methodologies (e.g. for setting
Water Quality Objectives and Emission Limit Values) plus the adoption of overarching
principles determining current water policies of the EU. The key requirements of the
WFD are outlined as well. Further information on experience gained and challenges
for achieving IWRM in Europe can be accessed on the website of the European
Union, particularly at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/
index_en.html.
IWRM and the EU Water Framework Directive are largely based on the same
principles, but the issues they deal with are very different. IWRM focuses on peoplecentred
management, sectors and economy,
poverty, lowest appropriate level, gender sensitivity, public participation and
decentralization. All these elements are of great importance to India, but less so
to the EU WFD, which uses keywords such as protection, good status of waters,
river basin management, water pricing, emission limits, streamlining legislation, and
citizen involvement in planning. This supported the choice to base the Pamba pilot
on IWRM principles and not on the EU Water Framework Directive. Nevertheless,
there is still potential for India to review the EU WFD for elements that have proven
their merit, such as a trans-boundary policy framework, institutional arrangements,
and integration of sector-based interests. For purpose of reference, a summary of
the EU WFD is provided in Annex 3.
1.1 EU-India Joint Action Plan
The EU-India Action Plan Support Facility (APSF) Programme has been designed
to implement the EU-India Joint Action Plan (JAP) as adopted at the EU-India 2005
Summit. The JAP outlines concrete cooperation initiatives in the field of environment/
climate change in particular, to develop a dialogue on global environmental issues with
a view to building mutual understanding on Multilateral Environmental Agreements
(e.g. the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol),
hold regular meetings of the EU-India Joint Working Group on Environment and
develop high-level visits. The 2005 Summit also produced an agreement to launch
the EU-India Initiative on Clean Development and Climate Change as part of the
JAP, linking the actions undertaken in the Environment and Energy sectors in a
coherent manner and building on the work of the EU-India Energy Panel, the Joint
Working Group on Environment and the newly created Environment Forum.
The Action Plan Support Facility-Environment Technical Assistance, which is being
implemented between December 2007 and June 2011, aims to improve policy
analysis and knowledge, cooperation, regulation and civil society dialogue in
relation to the environment in India. The APSF-Environment Component of the Joint
Action Plan focuses on five sectors, i.e. water, waste, chemicals, air pollution and
climate change, whereby technical assistance is provided by a consortium led by
Euroconsult Mott MacDonald.
One of the activities that have been implemented under the Water Sector of
the APSF-Environment TA is the development and implementation of a pilot on
Integrated River Basin Planning, i.e. for Pamba River in Kerala State. This resulted
in the organization of a number of workshops on the identification of constraints and
possible management interventions for Pamba River, and finally the preparation of
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