WP #5: Water Resources Assessment

The quality of the decisions that can be made in planning and developing water resources is, in large part, dependent on the quality of the information available to decision makers.  While earlier papers in this series have clearly acknowledged that making decisions about water is, rightfully, an essentially political process, this does not mean that there is no difference between a political choice based on good and widely shared information, and one based on erroneous, disputed or restricted information. 

Having a methodology to identify the minimum information needs required to make a good decision is therefore critical to the larger purpose of EMPOWERS.  And developing cost-efficient approaches to collecting and managing this information in shared, and commonly owned, information bases is a major avenue of inquiry.  Water Resource Assessments (WRA) provide the guiding framework for the application of these approaches.

This paper is divided into two main parts, the first dealing with the theory and background to WRAs, the second to their practical implementation and use within EMPOWERS.  Part one is further divided into sections dealing with: i) the conceptual background and need for WRAs; ii) a discussion of how they can be applied at different levels of intensity within IWRM processes; and iii) a discussion of critical issues relating to scale.

To download the complete working paper, click the link below

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