Water Resources For Sustainable Development

The availability of water in adequate quantity and quality is a necessity for sustainable development. Water scarcity as well as water quality are a global crisis. The United Nations emphasizes the need for imperative focus on the water-related issues in “Agenda 21” Chapter 18.

Objective

The study highlights the importance of sustainable management of renewable natural resources such as Water Resources to ensure that the rate of harvesting a resource is smaller than the rate of its renewal by quantifying sustainable development through usage of indicators.

Methodology

Indicators such as Network Density was taken into consideration by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which was defined as the ‘average area served by one hydrological station’. WMO worked on Basic Hydrological Network Assessment Project (BNAP) to assess the adequacy of networks for a region. The regions were divided into "basin units"; “Physiographic units”: mountainous, interior plains, hilly/undulating, small islands (<500 km^2), coastal and polar/arid on basis of area, elevation, climate, population, total number of existing & new stations; hydrometric units: precipitation, snow storage, streamflow, evaporation, surface & groundwater, sediment and water quality.

Results

WMO reported that there are more than 100,000 stations for water quality, 200,000 precipitation gauges operating worldwide, 12,000 for evaporation, 64,000-discharge, 38,000-water level, 18,500-sediment, 330,000-ground water. The results indicated that there are 9 countries in the Middle East, that withdraw more water than their annual renewable supply. Libya is withdrawing 374% of its water reserves. The Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers dried up due to excessive diversions for agriculture purposes for cotton growth which has led to an imbalance in the Aral Sea. The results further indicate the susceptible areas: arid, semiarid, droughts, desertification, vulnerable mountainous, ecologically fragile small islands as well water-logged areas need more focus for ecological and geological balance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Agenda 21 urges the sustainability should be built into national accounting. Countries that over-utilize their natural assets should manage their use-to-resource ratios to counter resource exhaustion and work towards sustainable development of water resources.

Kundzewicz, Zbigniew W. 1997. "Water resources for sustainable development." Hydrological Sciences Journal 42(4), 467-480.