Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

2 7 2 / M A N A G E M E N T C H A L L E N G E S : S T E W A R D S H I P A N D G O V E R N A N C EMitigating Risk and Coping with UncertaintyTHERE IS A GROWING REALIZATION that the scale and frequency of water-related disasters is increasing, and thateffective management and mitigation of water-related risk is an important issue. This is reflected in theresolutions of international meetings and in the priorities and programmes of United Nations (UN) agencies, suchas in the International Conference on Freshwater (Bonn, December 2001):The world is experiencing a dramatic increase ofsuffering from the effects of disasters, ranging fromextreme droughts to huge floods, caused by the poormanagement of water and land and possibly by climatechange. Human society and particularly the poor arebecoming more vulnerable to such disasters.Databases of the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance(OFDA) and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster(CRED) reveal that more than 2,200 major and minor water-relateddisasters occurred in the world during the period 1990–2001. Ofthese, floods accounted for half of the total disasters, water-borneand vector disease outbreaks accounted for 28 percent and droughtaccounted for 11 percent of the total disasters. Thirty-five percent ofthese disasters occurred in Asia, 29 percent in Africa, 20 percent inthe Americas, 13 percent in Europe and the rest in Oceania (seefigure 11.1). These factors are restricting the potential for improvingsocio-economic development and in many cases causing a decline inreal terms. The impacts from just one single disaster have, in somecases, lowered the Gross National Product (GNP) in poor economiesby as much as 10 percent. It has been claimed that the economiclosses from water disasters are currently equivalent to 20 percent ofnew investment needs in water.The efficient and effective management of risk is fundamentalto long-term prosperity. Risks arise from numerous human-madeand natural phenomena, many of which relate in some way or otherto various facets of water, including floods, droughts and pollution.The operation and management of water resources is not onlyexposed to extreme events generated as part of the natural weathercycle, but is also linked to economic and socio-political factors aswell as human error.Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), as theprevailing paradigm in water management, has been central topromoting the recognition that water meets a number ofinterrelated demands while forming an integral component of theeconomy and environment. Traditionally in the water sector,separate planning and operations strategies have been adopted forspecific economic sectors, a practice that continues today. Thisnarrow, sectoral approach, however, has probably limited thecapacity for effective management of risk and uncertainty as well asFigure 11.1: Types and distribution of water-related natural disasters, 1990–2001Famine2%Landslide andavalanche9%Africa29%Waterrelatedepidemic28%Drought11%Flood50%Asia35%OceaniaEurope3% Americas13% 20%Types of water-relatednatural disastersDistribution of waterrelatednatural disastersMore than 2,200 major and minor water-related disasters occurred in the world between 1990 and 2001. Asia and Africa were the most affected continents, with floodsaccounting for half of these disasters.Source: CRED, 2002.