Virtual Water and the Nexus in National Development Planning

Abstract

Because of their great variety of uses and impacts, the development and management of water resources has to be coordinated with the needs of users. Hydro-centric approaches such as ‘Dublin’ Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) convene stakeholders to water-focused processes on a river basin scale and emphasise environmental conservation rather than resource development. Hydro-supported processes work at the scale of political units and focus on ‘problem-sheds’, demand centres and supply systems, rather than river basins and develop multi-purpose rather than single purpose responses. As mandated at the UN’s Mar del Plata water conference, they seek integration with national development strategies. The evidence suggests that hydro-supportive processes are more effective in coordinating water management with other sectors because they operate at common political and administrative scales. Concepts such as “Virtual Water” and the “water-food-energy nexus” may usefully inform national and regional development planning by helping to identify inter-sectoral trade-offs and synergies. But they are unlikely to provide the basis for national policies on which regional cooperation and action depend, given the many other factors that have to be considered.