Water management today is faced with new challenges such as climate change or the effects of human activity. Public and private stakeholders who are active in this field must develop new ways to better manage the water cycle "as a whole". The objective of this MOOC is to develop an understanding of the problems related to water management. Firstly, this course will define a resource and, more specifically, the resource of water. It will look at how water is used and the activities associated with it as well as any potential conflicts. The course will look at water management in detail through the analysis of the different types of rights and obligations associated with, for example, the development of a multi-sectorial regulation system or a watershed management approach. By the end of this course, our aim is to enable you to: 1) Identify the main issues and strategies linked to water resource management 2) Acquire the key reading material needed to understand the many variables (environmental, institutional and political) which affect water and which, in terms of management, may require adjustment. This course was developed by the Geneva Water Hub. Alongside researchers from the University of Geneva from a range of faculties, researchers from other universities and research centres will be involved in this course. Practitioners who deal daily with the political dimension of water management will also input into the course. This MOOC is designed for all those interested in the water sector. Prior training is not necessary to follow our program. The findings presented in this course can be easily reapplied to different contexts and to different scales of analysis. This MOOC is supported by the Geneva Water Hub and the University of Geneva along with the MOOC in « Ecosystem Services: a Method for Sustainable Development » (www.coursera.org/learn/ecosystem-services) and the one in "International Water Law" (www.coursera.org/learn/droit-eau). This course is funded by the Global Programme Water Initiatives of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). This course is also available in French : www.coursera.org/learn/gestion-eau
4.2 From Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) to Watershed Management
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來自 University of Geneva 的課程
Water Resources Management and Policy
374 個評分
從本節課中
Module 4: The Integrated Watershed Management (IWM)
In this module, we further examine water management but this time we look specifically at how watersheds are managed. We see how stakeholders in Switzerland, in Europe (with the case of the Rhine) and internationally have promoted this concept as a reference for water management. These case studies allow us to identify the benefits and limitations (both practical and institutional) that are presented by the Integrated Watershed Management approach. The module is concluded by a quiz worth 20% of the final grade. You must have at least 80% of the responses correct to pass the module.
與講師見面
Christian BréthautAssistant Professor
Institut des sciences de l'environnement, Université de Genève
Géraldine PfliegerProfesseure associée
Institut de Gouvernance de l'Environnement et de Développement Territorial
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With the development
especially with the industrialization of water uses, interdependencies
between different users became increasingly strong.
And it was at that time, during the nineteenth century, that it became increasingly
important to manage water on the watershed scale.
Lets take two key examples.
Flood management and protection against water
finally recognised that the protection of a city downstream
is increasingly dependent on protection and prevention measures upstream.
At that point, we will start to try to coordinate water flow management
from upstream to downstream.
You can also take the example of hydro-electricity
which develops from the late nineteenth century.
Hydropower presents the same problem as navigation,
or flood management. We must ensure that optimizing
dams upstream does not prejudice the
efficient operation of dams downstream. Optimization
must be carried out across the entire watershed.
With these two cases, we have clear examples where management
at the watershed-scale, is more successful. It allows
cities and populations to be protected from floods and allows
more efficient electricity supplies via hydroelectric production.
These interdependencies raise awareness of a key element.
Watershed-based management may be more effective
across fragmented territories.
From this moment on, we become aware of the potential
and also the dreams of geographers
as captured in this quote by the French geographer Buache in 1766:
who dreams of redrawing all the geography and territories,
not by concern for political boundaries,
but rather by natural boundaries formed by mountains and valleys.
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beyond geographers’ dreams, is a whole range of disciplines,
including hydrologists, but also engineers, will try to impose
the watershed as a new scale of water management.
It all starts in the United States in the 1920s and
up until the 1940s. We will see a similar story
in France. In the same period, in the USA,
with the development of large hydroelectric dams, including the
Colorado River. The challenge will be coordination
and for the federal states to work together.
Take the example of the Colorado River.
The river flows from from north to south. Through states
such as Wyoming or Utah, which are full of water
to arid states like Arizona and California in the south.
Water transfers are necessary as is the shared use of
this water, sometimes abundant in the North, sometimes abundant in the South.
On this basis, the federal state of Washington will consider
Colorado as a river of national interest.
States are encouraged to coordinate
to enable a more efficient management of this river.
This happens even if it is before the courts as seen with several cases,
several cases where the states are in opposition.
Or alternatively by long-term agreements
obtained by Washington which states are forced to sign.
So what’s the challenge?
It is to produce electricity and to manage the
hydraulic power of the Colorado in the most optimal way possible.
It is a fine example of how, ultimately, the economic potential of
the river will be put ahead of institutional reconfiguration.
the river will be put ahead of institutional reconfiguration.
and the creation of basin agencies,
attempts are made to have more efficient management mechanisms.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic in France
and at the same period of time, the problems are actually quite similar.
The management of the Rhone must be coordinated, for navigation,
for the development of hydroelectric dams,
for flood management. Again, the great engineers
of major organs of the State are trying to loosen the
grip of local power on rivers and streams.
These engineers of bridges and mines will promote the creation
of consolidated companies such as the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône,
which will be dedicated to the complete management of the Rhone.
With this creation, this reform, the state acquires the capacity for local action
and will try to marginalize local authorities
and hydraulic associations who had managed the river until this point.
These hydraulic associations, these hydraulic communities
are not able to coherently manage the river
and the state will therefore request through a 1919 concession,
that the river is managed by the CNR, the Compagnie Nationale du Rhone.
What is interesting about the case of the CNR is that it does not
only manage hydropower. It manages the river as a whole,
navigation, maintenance of riverbanks, but also floods
and obviously hydropower.
The Compagnie Nationale du Rhône
is possibly the earliest form of
integrated management at the basin scale.
In 1964, the state will also support the creation
of water agencies for each of France’s major watersheds.
These water agencies are the first major water authorities
specialized on this issue, developed
on a different basis from the one observed with the CNR.
Water agencies, for the main part, have two main differences.
On one hand, they are public actors who involve the users. We find
the community spirit so dear to Elinor Ostrom is present in basin committees
that will bring together all users at the basin scale. That is the first
change. The second evolution with the creation of water agencies
is that water starts to be considered not just as a problem
or an economic potential, through flood management,
or hydro-electricity which was a really dominant issue until this point.
Water starts to be considered for what it is - a natural resource
at risk of pollution, a resource that must be preserved because it
supports the entire ecosystem chain.
From this point, the water agencies tackle watershed management
from an economic angle, but also from an ecological angle.
So there is a dual revolution. On one hand,
users are integrated with basin committees and diverse uses are integrated
more than before with the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône.
It is, in fact, on this basis that the French experience develops the
European Water Framework Directive. The Framework Directive
of the year 2000 puts watersheds
on the relevant scale of water management.
This directive is eventually used to structure
the development of contemporary water policies in countries such as France,
Germany and other members of the European Union.
What does this directive state?
Above all, a good ecological condition of the river basins must be reached.
This means two things.
Quality standards are established for the entire stream,
the entire river and the entire watershed.
It is still extremely ambitious. Ultimately
the issues of pollution, here on the Rhone in Geneva
will be addressed in the management of the Rhône
further downstream, near Lyon or Arles, in France.
There will be attempts to manage the quality of large watersheds
and then, indirectly, a push is made to set up a
series of institutions, devices, or even agencies,
authorities in charge of the management of these watersheds,
precisely to take into consideration these pollution problems.
With the obligations set by the European Union,
the tendency is towards major reforms in policy and water management.
These reforms will concern the most centralized countries,
such as France, and even England.
In contrast,
the most federal countries, federalists, such as Germany or the Netherlands,
will have more difficulty in implementing basin management authorities.
These countries remain with a fragmented management
at the level of federal states, provinces or Länder,
who will ultimately remain responsible for watershed management.
Nevertheless, watersheds are becoming the norm,
the paradigm on a European scale.
But that’s not all. All major international agencies who
promote a sustainability
and sustainable water governance, will also attempt to
promote the watershed as a reference scale.
We have seen this increasingly in the United State
but also in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where rivers such as
the Niger are now managed through transnational basin authorities.
It is one of the major requirements of international water law
calling for consistent management on the watershed scale.
And so through this journey, which has led us from the United States,
to global water governance, we can understand
which processes are involved in the basin scale as a reference scale.
A reference scale which has scientific foundations, originating
from geographers, naturalists,
biologists and engineers. It then takes on a political dimension
with reform issues,
institutional reforms but also reforms related to performance
which view water as ecological as well as economical.
We will see that watershed management.
is far from easy.
It raises key issues of application, practical capacity
or more precisely
of implementation.
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