1. mike
Mike Muller
Mike Muller
Colombo February 2011

2. Have we escaped the water box?
 Heard a great deal about economics and hydrology
 But much less about social issues,
 Almost incidentally, political challenges of irrigation are
largely about livelihoods and poverty, so virtual water trade
can produce the food but cannot feed the poor and landless
 And not much critical analysis of institutions
 Except that they are not generally not effective
 Not achieving what we need to achieve, but is that
 Because of old goals?
 Whose problem? “theirs” problem or “ours”?
 Institutional design, the elephant in the room?

3. What does “water security” tell us?
Language is important ...
“The wars of the next century will be for water”,
“unless we change the way we manage water”.
Ismael Serageldin, 1996
Former VP Sustainable Development, World Bank
Founder of the World Water Council
Head of the Alexandria Library

4. Language is important
What is meant by water security?
 Household?
 Reliable services
 Health
 Community?
 Resilience to disasters
 Vulnerability of economy
 National?
 survival of the state and nation
 Environmental?
 Ecological survival, from local to planet

5. So what are our water resource
management goals?

6. How water resource development &
management supports economies
Flow Management and
Infrastructure interventions
Maximum flood flow
Maximum flood flow
Reliable Flow
Reliable Flow Time

7. Discharge
12
/1
7/
20
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
0
12 10
/1
9/
20
12 10
/2
1/
20
12 10
/2
3/
20
12 10
/2
5/
20
12 10
/2
7/
20
12 10
/2
9/
20
12 10
/3
1/
20
10
1/
2/
20
11
1/
Gariep Inflow
4/
20
11
1/
6/
20
11
Date
1/
8/
Gariep Dam
20
11
1/
10
/2
Gariep Outflow
01
1/ 1
12
/2
01
1/ 1
14
/2
01
1/ 1
Gariep (%)
16
/2
01
1/ 1
18
/2
01
1/ 1
20
/2
01
1/ 1
22
/2
01
1/ 1
24
/2
01
1
85
90
95
100
105
110
115
120
125
7
Capacity (%)

8. From theory to practice …
Ethiopia: RainfallGDP andGDPGDP
Ethiopia: Rainfall, and Agric.
80 25
20
60
15
40
percentage
10
20 5
0
0
-5
1986
1988
1989
1991
1992
1994
1995
1997
1983
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1998
2000
1982
1985
1999
-20 -10
-15
-40
rainfall variation around the mean -20
-60 GDP growth
-25
Ag GDP growth
-80 -30
year
World Bank

9. Reliable
supplies =
More investment and
greater productivity

10. Framing the issue : a definition
“Water security”:
 “…the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality
of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and
production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-
related risks to people, environments and economies.”
 Not the same as ‘food security’ and ‘energy security’,
 reliable access to sufficient supplies.
 “water security” also captures destructive aspects of water
 floods and droughts as well as quality
 And broader environmental and biodiversity goals ...

11. Water is context specific
Which would you
rather be run over
by?
Depends where
you live

12. Water management is a complex business
Flood line –
Water for agriculture development Water for nature conservation –
– commercial cane constraint National park
Offtake for sugar mill and village
Weir, interferes with Onward flow to poor
(return channel, warm treated
environmental function people & neighbors
water, just downstream)

13. Framing the issue
 To achieve water security, need
 Investments in infrastructure to store and transport
water, treat and reuse waste water
 robust institutions, able to take and implement decisions
 information and the capacity to predict, plan and cope
 Does “water security” help to clarify our goals?
 better include social issues, poverty
 And does it support structured thinking about the
institutions best able to help us to achieve them

14. CONCLUSIONS
 Water security may be useful paradigm
Tests:
 does it help us to address the broader
developmental challenges of poverty and
social inclusion?
 does it guide us as to the structure of the
institutions that we may choose to use?