222893e

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON WATER SCIENCES AND RESEARCHA use-inspired approach tosustainable water managementOmar Osman, Vice-Chancellor; Kamarulazizi Ibrahim, Director, Professor; Kanayathu Koshy,Professor of Sustainability, Centre for Global Sustainability Studies; Ismail Abustan, Professor,School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Sains MalaysiaIn a world threatened by climate change and a burgeoningglobal population, government alone cannot addressthe challenges arising from increasing demand for wateraccess. Universities must play a key role by helping governmentsdetermine how to manage and allocate water resourcesand provide water services. Recognizing this, Universiti SainsMalaysia (USM) has been taking proactive measures to playits part, focusing on research initiatives and education-basedcapacity-building. USM’s approach to water research is guidedby the identified sustainability challenges that a wide spectrumof water users is currently experiencing. Our research is proactivelydesigned to be need-based and is inspired by the goal ofputting the results to immediate use in finding solutions.There follows an account of USM’s experiences in integratedapproaches to river and stormwater management, modelling forscenario generation 1 and our ongoing Polar Research Initiative,polar@USM. 2 These illustrate the need for science and values-baseddecision-making for people-centred water cooperation as a newparadigm for integrated water management.BackgroundEnsuring the free flow of water for all is a major sustainabilitychallenge that is felt across the world. In orderto manage one of the most crucial natural resourcesfor human survival effectively and to ensure the “waterfuture we want” the United Nations Conference onSustainable Development was held in Rio in 2012.Here, the global community “reaffirmed the commitmentmade in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementationand the Millennium Declaration regarding halving by2015 the proportion of people without access to safedrinking water and basic sanitation and the developmentof integrated water resource management andwater efficiency plans, ensuring sustainable wateruse.” 3 By declaring 2013 the International Year ofWater Cooperation, the United Nations has specificallyacknowledged the urgency of mainstreaming “waterand sanitation as a sustainable development goal thatcorresponds and responds to multidimensional challenges.”4 UN-Water has called upon the United NationsImage: REDAC USMBIOECODS approaches to integrated water management[ 291 ]