Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

2 8 4 / 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 Uncertaintyproviding irrigation from reservoirs, wells or water imports fromareas unaffected by the drought. Other mitigation measures mayinclude crop insurance and relief programmes to ensure water forbasic needs and provide food supplements.Mitigation efforts typically include contingency planning thatmight comprise arrangements for alternative supplies, putting intoforce water economy measures and protecting priority uses. The slowonset of drought combined with drought forecasting can enable suchmeasures to be implemented in advance of the emergency occurring.The improvement in recent years in seasonal and long-term climatepredictions, such as those issued by many national and regionalinstitutes, including WMO’s Drought Monitoring Centres in Africa, willassist effective implementation of contingency plans.There are a variety of longer-term mitigation measures that canbe taken. These include changing crop type, recognizing lands thatare indeed marginal and appropriately changing agriculturalpractices, and constructing reservoirs. Populations will eventuallyhave to build their security at a local and family level. An importantrequirement is, therefore, to identify and establish strategies thatenable the community to cope with droughts, including revival oftraditional customs for cultivation and livestock.Relocation of populations is another possible long-term measurethat is being debated. However, the social capacity to handle migrationand resettlement are issues that warrant careful consideration.Perspectives in the Managementof RisksConstraints to the achievement of effective risk managementThere is a shortage of effective disaster-preparedness and mitigationmeasures, e.g. flood dikes, early warning systems, shelters, reliefstockpiles and disaster response teams. Some of the barriers toeffective risk reduction quoted by the International Federation ofRed Cross (IFRC, 2002) are described below.■ Geopolitical conflicts of the 1990s dominated the humanitarianagenda, pushing aside the problem of vulnerability to naturalhazards.■ Responsibilities for mitigating disasters are fragmented.■ Risk reduction is not an integral part of water resourcemanagement and development.■ Risk reduction is viewed as a technical problem, and often theunderlying factors that compel people to live in insecureconditions are ignored.■ Donors dedicate far fewer resources to risk reduction than to relief.While risk reduction technology and programmes are very important,the call is for enhanced responsibility for social water risk andrecognition of a number of basic economic, institutional, legal andcommercial constraints to the achievement of effective riskmanagement.■ Economic constraint: one major constraint to successfulmanagement and reduction of risk is that of recovering the costsfrom the beneficiaries. The dilemma, expressed in economicterms, is that management and risk reduction measures respondto a public good. Different from quantity and quality, riskmitigation responds to a public good that is non-exclusive andnon-rival and economic practice suggests that it will beunderprovided by private markets or not provided at all due tothe free-rider aspect of the good. For the same reason, riskmitigation has no efficient marginal price and cost recoverybecomes complicated especially in a market-based economy. Ifrisk reduction is the only service of an investment pricing atmarginal cost, some lump sum measure to allocate and recovercosts is necessary. These non-separable costs are however notoften included or recovered as part of land taxes. Faced withbudget constraints and the trend of transferring watermanagement responsibilities to the private sector, nationalgovernments are experiencing difficulties supporting increasingrisk management from public budgets.■ Institutional constraint: water constitutes one of several risksunder the responsibility of Prevention and Civil Protection outsideof the water sector. As a consequence, management of waterrelatedrisk is often relegated to a technical side issue at asubordinate level and not integrated into the political economicallocation process in the water sector or other strategic sectors.■ Legal constraint: for reasons already mentioned, risk is notalways considered in project selection and resource allocation foreconomic development, notwithstanding that the responsibilityof managing and mitigating natural and human-induced disastersis provided under the principles of precautionary and preventiveaction adopted in many national, regional and international waterand environmental legislations.■ Commercial constraint: the accommodation of hydrological risksas a calculated insurance risk is hampered by the fact that thevulnerable objects are spread over extensive common areaswhere a multitude of other risks are added up to a very largecovered and uncovered total insured risk. In this case not even