Reliable, Resilient, and Sustainable Water Management in Different Water Use Sectors

Abstract

In order to balance between financial and social constraints of water and respond to competing for water requirements, it is important to sustain and manage essential water systems. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate sustainable water management in specific sectors: urban, agricultural, and environmental and addresses questions, such as (1) how is sustainable water management described and assessed? (2) what challenges occur in sustainable water development in different sectors? (3) which aspects/elements of sustainable water developments are important in agricultural and urban water management? and (4) how do different countries improve sustainable water management? Depending on the complexity of water systems, water users and sources of water, techniques for estimating performances of water management can be simple (such as indicator techniques) or complex (such as several models). The techniques are analyzed in this study. The findings from implementing sustainable water management suggest that all water users consider which source of water (e.g., usable and reusable) is more suitable to use. They also state that increasing agricultural water use efficiency can significantly reduce total water consumption, which can lead to global food security. In addition, results showed that the level of local infrastructure conditions and financial capabilities are more important in sustainable water management than is the level of regional development.