Recent thinking on IWRM at CAIWA 2007

At a recent workshop on Critical Perspectives on IWRM Theory and Practice at CAIWA 2007

Nigel Watson (Lancaster, UK) presented a case that the implementation of IWRM needs rethinking. This has implications for Policy and Practice:

•IWRM should be designed around the principle of multi-party collaboration

“…the pooling of appreciations and/or tangible resources, e.g. money, labour etc., by two or more stakeholders to solve a set of problems which neither can solve individually.” (Gray, 1985, p.912)

•Move away from programmed (blue-print) implementation for IWRM and adopt an adaptive approach

“The ideal of adaptive implementation is the establishment of a process that allows policy to be modified, specified and revised – in a word, adapted – according to the unfolding interaction of the policy with its institutional setting. Its outcomes would be neither automatic nor assured, and it would look more like a disorderly learning process than a predictable procedure.” Berman (1980, p.210)

More detail to be found at:

‘Critical Perspectives on Integrated Water Management’
Special Issue of The Geographical Journal, Volume 173, No. 4,
December 2007.
Edited by Nigel Watson, Gordon Walker and Will Medd