Addressing the global water and environment crises through integrated approaches to the management of land, water and ecological resources

As the world approaches the 30-year anniversary of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and prepares to review progress made in the decade since Dublin and Rio, we are confronted with results that are mostly disappointing. When it comes to addressing the water resources crisis, the 1990s may well be remembered as a decade of debate rather than action. Recent assessments suggest a doubling to almost two-thirds of the world's population experiencing some water stress by 2025 and increased demands to withdraw move water for a new "green revolution" for irrigated agriculture. Both of these will accelerate environmental degradation to a new crisis level while the existing degradation that resulted from the first "green revolution" still awaits remedial action both in the North as well as in the South. It is now clear that the global water crisis and the global environment crisis are linked and are being exacerbated by unprecedented global pressure resulting from over-consumption, population growth, globalization of economic systems and trade, reduction in development assistance, and failure to enact necessary policy, legal, and institutional reforms. This article makes the case that the traditional sector-by-sector approach to economic development is a key contributor to the two global crises. Lessons of experience are presented on policy, legal, and institutional reforms necessary to address the inter-linked crises through integrated approaches to managing land and water resources and their biological diversity. Water pricing reforms, reductions in damaging subsidies, land tenure reforms, community participation, and institutional reforms are necessary. There is a need to build upon the linkages and synergies among the three Rio conventions (climate, biodiversity, and desertification) in order to create new global driving forces for actions to address the crises holistically in the context of a country's national sustainable development strategy. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) and its implementing agencies stand ready with incremental cost grant financing to assist countries willing to undertake the reforms for integrated basin management of land water and biological resources as they transition towards sustainable development.