Water Resource Management [antikvár]

PREFACE Water resources management is an important and complex area of governmental resource management and environmental policies. It includes the management of the quantity and quality of water used for all purposes, including drinking water, industrial water, irrigation and recreational uses and the various sources of supply, e.g. surface as well as groundwater. In addition resource management policies have to be reconciled with environmental and other economic policies, including agricultural policies to ensure an overall economic efficiency in policy formulation and implementation. Today water resource management policies should be designed to: -- correct the institutional failures which are present and which manifest themselves in fragmented, conflicting and unco-ordinated management of the various aspects of water resources; -- correct markét failures which, at present, are manifested by non-existant or partial and inefficient demand management of water resources; -- correct management failures in the use and protection of groundwater resources Thus water resources management is both an economic and environmental challenge and it needs to be resolved in an integrated manner to meet the environmental and economic requirements and to provide water at the appropriate quality at the lowest cost. This report indicates the main areas of concern which need to be tackled to move towards this goal. The report addresses these problem areas and is the result of a three-year OECD project during which Member countries made a major co-operative effort to pool their knowledge and experiences. Over 50 country reports in the various fields and close on 100 case studies have been produced on which this report is based. As the result of this report the Council of the OECD adopted a set Recommendation on "Water Resource Management Policies: Integration, Demand Management and Groundwater Protection" which is contained in Part IV to this report.