Water Governance Challenges

The report addresses the growing water challenges in developing countries, distinguishing between two different categories of water resources problematique. In the irrigated Green Revolution countries, an urban/rural blue water competition is emerging, driven by population growth, urban expansion, industrialization and new lifestyles. The problems are especially demanding in regions with depleted rivers and overexploited groundwater aquifers. For the billions of poor in the semiarid savanna regions, where rainfed smallholder farming dominates agriculture, a new type of agricultural revolution is called for, harvesting the potential of green water in the soil through conservation farming and rainwater harvesting. Due to this dichotomized problematique, water governance has to shift its focus from blue water and incorporate also green water linked to land use, and see rainfall as the manageable freshwater resource. To secure environmental sustainability, special efforts are called for to clarify water-related trade offs in balancing between human and ecosystem wellbeing.