Leandro del Moral, Maria Fernanda Pita, Belén Pedregal,
Nuria Hernández-Mora, and Natalia Limones
Department of Human Geography, University of Seville, Spain
Water management goals, methodologies, conceptual approaches and institutional
frameworks have evolved significantly over the past 30 years. These transformations have
been stimulated by the promotion of the Integrated Water Resources Management
(IWRM) paradigm by experts, academics, managers and international institutions.
However, the application of IWRM faces resistance from defenders of the previously
dominating infrastructural and resource-oriented hydraulic paradigm. It is also challenged
by the contradictions and limitations that emerge from the practical experiences in its
implementation at different scales. From a general perspective, criticism against the
hydraulic paradigm and the emergence and consolidation of IWRM can be understood as
being a part, in the water policy arena, of the historical shift from the post-war Keynesian
regulation model to the current neo-liberal globalization system or, in more specific terms,
from the “administrative rationalism” stage to the current “neo-privatization” trend.
Increasing attention is being paid to the potential interconnections between the
encouragement of water governance, a central focus of the IWRM approach, with wider
global socio-economic processes that challenge existing democratic institutions. The wider
hegemonic economic thought in which IWRM prescriptions are integrated, particularly the
commodification processes and monetary reductionism of natural resources and the
preeminence of the river basin as the natural scale for water resources management, is also
coming under scrutiny.
From an epistemological perspective, the traditional separation of social and natural
sciences has ignored the overlap of both fields of knowledge, which results in the limited
theoretical and methodological development for their joint analysis, as well as the paucity
of available data for management. The consideration of water as a socio-ecological
patrimony requires linking biophysical and socioeconomic variables, a significant
challenge given the current knowledge and modeling capabilities. There is a strong need
for information on the complexity of socio-hydrological systems, which are reflexive,
adaptive, non-linear and complex, and have feed-back loops, emerging properties and nonpredictable responses to management interventions. In the context of the evolving
paradigm for water management the recognition of these knowledge limitations are of vital
importance.
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