Double-Edged Hydropolitics on the Nile - Center for Security Studies ...

International River Basins: Management and Conflict Perspectives
pollution levels put additional pressures on many rivers, affecting both
domestic water users in different sectors and the international relations
between co-riparian states. Towards the end of the 20th century, observers
and policy-makers increasingly warned of a global water crisis in the light
of the persistent lack of access to water supply and sanitation in developing
countries, populations growing beyond the water scarcity benchmark in
numerous countries, and increasing concerns for the ecological and financial
sustainability of water use (Gleick 1993). At international gatherings like the
1992 International Conference on Water and the Environment in Dublin
and the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development,
the fundamental importance of water in relation to human health, food
production, and environmental conservation was highlighted and anchored
on the agenda of policy-makers globally (e.g., Allan 2003).
‘Water management’ – broadly understood as the development, distribution,
and regulated utilization of water resources – has evolved from a
rather narrow technical notion into a complex framework in response to
the manifold challenges.
Allan (2003) illustrates the development of ‘water management’ narratives
in the light of several successive paradigms. While during the first part of
the 20th century, water managers pursued a ‘hydraulic mission’ to increase
and control river flows through large-scale engineering work, three emerging
perspectives fundamentally transformed the predominant water management
approaches. The growing awareness of the environmental value of aquatic
ecosystems raised criticism towards large-scale infrastructure projects, particularly
since the 1980s. In the 1990s, the debate on water as an economic
good gave prominence to new water management approaches aiming to
increase water use efficiency and cost recovery, and to strengthen the role of
the private sector. In the 2000s, the political and institutional dimensions
of ‘water management’ (now increasingly termed ‘water governance’) were
highlighted in emerging ‘holistic’ approaches, most prominently in the
Integrated Water Resources Management framework.
Gleick (2000) frames the emergence of the contemporary water management
principles by pointing to the changing nature and flexibility of demand,
the role of the environmental movement, and the economic advantages of
non-infrastructural strategies in mitigating water scarcity and pollution.
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