INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: THEORY AND PRACTICE

Water resource planning and management are undergoing a paradigm shift. Historically, rivers have been viewed as communities to be exploited to the maximum extent possible for economic development. Water resource planning has primarily been an engineering exercise to achieve the optimum development of river basins for hydropower, flood control and consumptive use. Throughout the world, countries have constructed large-scale multiplepurpose dams and irrigation systems. Both international and domestic water law has supported optimum development by (1) creating semi-exclusive national rights to divert and store water and (2) and encouraging unilateral national water resources development.Water management meant the enforcement of existing entitlements and adherence to the original project purposes. The traditional vision of a river system of a commodity to be put to the optimum or maximum use remains the dominant paradigm in many parts of the world such as China, Central Asia, India and other areas as a matter of choice or necessity. However, the traditional paradigm is slowly being replaced by the alternative paradigm of ecologically sustainable development (ESD).