Water

This training program was designed to help officials and professionals from government and non-government organizations in South Asia to understand the concepts and principles of river basin management.

• Background
• Participants
• Modules
• Presentations
• Group Works
• Field Visit
• Participants' Evaluation

• Afghanistan
• Bangladesh
• India

• Nepal
• Pakistan
• Sri Lanka

• RBM is a process of many steps, agreements and adjustments that takes a long time.

• There is no 'blue print' RBM or RBO since

  countries vary; within countries, basins themselves and water users vary.

• There is need for water laws with adequate penalties and enforcement to underpin RBM.

• There is a clear need to focus on improved data collection and transformation of these data into useful management information for broad sharing with stakeholders.

• There is need to design effective mechanisms for stakeholder consultations and enlist their cooperation in implementing programs for developing and managing water resources.

• Formal "RBOs" or creation of large public bureaucracies are not essential for managing water-scarce river basins. Various kinds of committees and networks can often work just as effectively. But there needs to be a clear legal framework, including clarity on water rights, and a regulatory framework to make such arrangements work.

• The Land Improvement District (LID) system is the prevailing system for water resources management in Japan and is recognized as one of the more successful innovations in the region to support user involvement in management of irrigation and water resource schemes.

• LID system has grown out of a long experience in communal management of land and water resources, developed gradually by farmers themselves and subsequently formalized by the Land Improvement Act of 1949. LID is managed by officers selected by farmers.

• The completion of water sector reform and the enactment of the new Law on Water Resources No.7/2004 will set the stage for real decentralization of authority in RBM in Indonesia (INO)

• 90 RBM units (Balai PSDA) are responsible for water resources development and management in INO.

• In developed and strategic basins of national importance, the Government of Indonesia strengthened basin resources management by establishing self-financing, autonomous RBM corporations.

• Many small reservoirs are more than 3,000 years old; some large reservoirs are more than 2,500 years old. River basin development approach is nearly 50 years old.

• The Mahaweli River Basin, the largest basin in Sri Lanka, faces many challenges:

• erosion, destruction of vegetation, waste dumping, river bank encroachment, increasing water pollution
• problematic allocation of water for competing demands
• maintenance of a large network of canals and field channels
• aging of large structures built under different technologies
• threats from natural disasters

Participants answered the following questions:

• In most countries, government's activities related to water are spread among many ministries. What steps should be taken in a RBM system in order to improve coordination?

• What should be done in order to increase people's participation in decisions and actions about RBM?

• The country reports on issues mostly identified deterioration of water quality, biodiversity, etc. What institutional changes do you recommend for reversing the trend?

Participants visited 3 areas in the Maha Oya basin (upper reach, middle reach, and lower reach) and reported on issues and observations in the basin relative to the following:

• coordination and organization
• community participation
• environment and water quality

Participants visited 3 areas in the Maha Oya basin (upper reach, middle reach, and lower reach) and reported on short and long-term suggestions and actions in the basin relative to the following:

• coordination and organization
• community participation
• environment and water quality

Participants designed a hypothetical institutional system for RBO with the following questions:

• What new organizations will you establish for managing water in this basin? And what changes will you propose in the roles of existing organisations?

• There has been much resistance to the plans for basin management. What actions or programmes will you propose in order to persuade people that it will produce better results than the present situation? Consider specially the likely attitudes of (a) water users; (b) officials in the existing water-related bureaucracies; and (c) environmental groups; and

• How will you propose to finance the activities of the new basin organisation? What legal powers and procedures will the river-basin need, in order to reduce or prevent further degradation of water quality in the basin?