The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security - Unu-inweh ...

and flexibility in the management of shared waters. Examples from around the world demonstrate that principles that
work at the international level are also applicable at the sub-national level. Strengthened trust and confidence can only
emerge through collaboration and public involvement at all levels of basin governance.
There is another important subtext that emerges from these thoughtful essays. Together, they suggest that in our efforts
to adapt to changing climatic conditions, our focus should rightly be on water. If we are able to balance our needs for
water availability and quality in terms of nature, agriculture, populations and development, many other needs, including
achieving sustainability, may very well fall into place. Thus, we see that moving quickly to manage water more carefully
will generate greater global benefits in and of itself, while at the same time allowing us to imagine a future in which a
water crisis does not exist.
Finally, the examples and direction put forward in this book affirm the fact that strong and persistent political leadership
together with broad, ongoing collaboration is necessary if we wish to make progress in water governance. We see that
it is possible to build a meaningful and durable bridge between science and public policy that will help to successfully
address the global water crisis. However, in order to do so in a timely manner to assure water security for all, we need to
move quickly in order to keep up with both humankind’s growing and changing needs and demands, and the changes in
the way water is moving through the global hydrological cycle.
xii The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security Issue