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Environments 38(1)
Integrated Water Resources Management in Practice:
Better Water Management for Development
Lenton, R. and Muller, M (eds.) 2009. London, U.K.: Earthscan
Publication Ltd., 250 pages, ISBN 978-1-84407-649-9 (Hardback) / ISBN
978-1-84407-650-9 (paperback) CDN $193.95 (hardback) / CDN $81.95
(paperback).
Reviewed by Thomas Dyck, PhD Student, Department of Geography and
Environmental Studies, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada
Integrated Water Resources Management in Practice: Better Water Management for Development is a book that takes integrated water resource management (IWRM) off the conceptual shelf and puts it into practical contexts to
improve water resource management and to support growth and development.
Lenton and Muller, both extremely well established within the water management
field, provide this book as a support for development policy-makers and practitioners from various sectors (e.g. water, transportation, energy and industry)
to understand the principles and practice of IWRM and to support sustainable
human development. The book focuses on human development challenges as
much as water resource management challenges, using case studies from various settings to highlight management practices that embody IWRM principles.
IWRM principles recognize water as a “public good with both social and economic values” and facilitate good water resources management through “a broad
holistic perspective” and an “appropriate involvement of [water] users at different
levels” (p. 7).
Lenton and Muller acknowledge the difficult task of extracting the factors
that contribute to successful or failed approaches to water resource management
within each case study. However, through their thorough attempt, they successfully
highlight key messages to improving water resource management. Key messages
include finding balance between social, economic and environmental objectives
within continuously changing systems, identifying what factors contribute to good
governance and water resources management (e.g. engagement of society and
competent institutions that respond to contextual circumstances), the importance
of scale (e.g. assuring appropriate levels of water management from the local to
basin and national to transnational levels), and the overall nature of the IWRM
approach as a continuous response to challenges and opportunities.
The first chapter of the book is a broad introduction to the history of water
management and a conceptualization of IWRM. Chapter one finishes with
a clear description of the conceptual framework used throughout the book to
explore each case study. It also sets the stage for the following 13 chapters that
contain case studies of IWRM in various contexts, scales, and sectors. The case
studies are divided into four sections by scale (local level, water-basin level,
national level, and transnational level). Within each case study, five elements
are discussed namely: the varying levels and scales of a problem and response;
© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires.
Reviews
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development context; changes in policies and practice; outcomes from these
changes; and the learning opportunities for wider contexts.
This book is a pleasurable and informative read beginning with its overall
organization by scale. As Lenton and Muller express, not only do the needs
and opportunities of communities and countries arise at different scales, but
so does development and natural resource management occur at different
scales. Organizing the book by scale both enables practitioners to focus in
on the particular scale that may be of interest to them and underlines the role
that scale plays in water resource management, simultaneously highlighting
the interconnection between scales both crucial to many of the book’s learned
lessons. For example, in Chapter Seven a case study of the Murray-Darling
Basin in Southern Australia, analyzed at the local scale, demonstrates that local
challenges where effectively dealt with by local organizations only after broader
national coordination of water management was established. This case study
was a great example of the link between local and national scales and water
resource management.
The case studies explored throughout the book are methodically
and informatively put together to give the reader a comfortable balance of
developmental context that underpin water related challenges and responses
(by water managers and society) to such challenges leading to broader lessons
in water resources management. Development context is highlighted through a
wide mix of enlightening maps, diagrams, and tables as well as through detailed
biophysical and social historical reviews. A great example of this detailed
historical review can be found within Chapter Nine detailing the case of Lake
Biwa, Japan. Details of the historical water management challenges dating back
“…more then a century to an episode of severe flooding in 1896”, combined with
more recent details of “excessive levels of nutrients” in the water contributing to
“massive algal blooms and red tides in the lake in 1977”, contribute to a complete
picture of the water management challenges within the basin (p. 124). The book’s
learned lessons are successfully demonstrated through an analysis of how water
managers and society respond to water related challenges and the resulting
social, economic and environmental outcomes. Demonstrated also within the
Lake Biwa-Yoda basin example, the authors’ describe that “campaigns against
pollution spilled over into [the] broader community, and public participation and
citizens’ action were an important instrument of social change around Lake Biwa,
helping to build consensus as well as to encourage water-use efficiency” (p.
127). This description clearly portrays citizens’ response to pollution and resulting
outcomes of campaigns. From this discussion, clear lessons are learned about
stakeholder participation and its “contribution to achieving balance between the
various users of water and the needs of the resource itself” (p. 133).
In the final chapter, Lenton and Muller address recent criticism that IWRM
is difficult to operationalize and is therefore limited in its usefulness. Lenton
and Muller adequately confront these criticisms by emphasizing throughout this
book that IWRM is less a “prescription” by which to make resource management
operational and more of an “approach that offers a framework within which the
problems of different communities and nations can be addressed” (p. 209). This
is shown through the criteria of case studies selected, namely, by experiences
© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires.
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and best management practices without IWRM as their primary concern. This
emphasizes that IWRM is a component of already established best water
management practice, rather than a new prescription within water resource
management.
Considering the importance in addressing the challenges posed by
uncertainty within resource management, it was pleasing to see the concept of
adaptive management incorporated into the final conclusions of the book. The
brief discussion and conceptual review of IWRM as adaptive management is
beneficial to understanding the challenges surrounding IWRM within uncertain
futures. However, given that one of the goals of the book was to improve water
management in “an increasingly uncertain tomorrow” (p. 1), I would have liked
to have seen more emphasis on adaptive management and its challenges
drawn from the case studies throughout the book. Although some references to
adaptive management were made in various case studies, specific discussion
about adaptive management founded on the experiences and best management
practices of the case studies would have been valuable for practitioners to
understand broader contexts within changing conditions.
Overall, Lenton and Muller have been successful at providing a practical
view of the IWRM concept through best management practices and experiences
from around the world. The reviewer not only recommends this book to
development policy-makers and practitioners, but as a graduate student, would
also recommend this book to other students who have an interest in development
and water resource management. The clear organization, useful lessons,
interesting case studies, and practical focus make it an important addition to the
IWRM literature.
© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires.