• 
• Japanese
• 
• IETC's Focal Area
• Waste Management
• Publications & Tools
• Meetings & Workshops
• Global Partnership on Waste Management
• Background
• Objectives
  & Expected Outcomes
• Framework
• Sub-focal Areas
• Information Platform
• Meetings
• Participation / Membership
• Water and Sanitation
• Publications & Tools
• Meetings & Workshops
• Resources
• Publications & Tools
• About IETC
• Background and History
• Director
• Activity Reports
• Supporting Foundations
• Internship
• Contact Us

Basic Components of a Management Structure.

A management system for lakes and reservoirs requires the following support systems:

• Institutional support
• Policy support
• Legal support
• Technical support
• Fiscal support
• Infrastructural support
• Educational and public awareness support

Institutional support system.
The institutional support system includes all government institutions: the legislature, the judiciary, the administration (i.e., government departments), educational institutions, law enforcement agencies, and any statutory institutions set up for the management of water resources, as well as non-governmental organizations.

Policy support systems
Environmental policies are an embodiment of national or regional perceptions of and values about the role of the environment in the national and regional economy and sustainable development. Without clear perceptions of the role of the environment, and especially the pivotal role of water resources, economic gains are liable to be short lived.

Legal support system
Legal support systems reflect society's obligation to the maintenance of a sustainable environment for economic and social well being. They embody a collective code of conduct in the protection and sustainable use of the environment. The management of eutrophication may dictate the need for periodic review of the legal system to ensure that it keeps abreast of developments in the watershed.

Technical support system
Eutrophication reflects land use and industrial processes that result in nutrient increases in lakes and reservoirs. It is now evident that the control of eutrophication requires innovative technology to cope with new threats that arise from economic activities. A eutrophication management system requires the constant review of technological capacity for its efficacy in eutrophication management. Partnerships between water managers and the private sector, universities and technical institutions can lead to the development of technologies appropriate for the local conditions.

Fiscal support systems
The allocation of sufficient funding is a good barometer of national awareness and commitment towards environmental sustainability. In preceding chapters it has been made clear that eutrophication management carries with it financial costs. While such costs can be shared with the private sector, such partnership can only meaningfully occur in the face of evidence of state fiscal commitment towards eutrophication management.

Infrastructural support systems.
The day to day activities of eutrophication management require infrastructure support of various types, such as well maintained research and monitoring facilities, plant and equipment maintenance capacity, and data and information management systems.

Education and public awareness.
No environmental management program can succeed without the full support and cooperation of the public, stakeholders and land users. This support can only be achieved through an effective information and public awareness support system.

The configuration of the institutional framework will vary according to local circumstances, such as whether the lake or reservoir is a provincially, nationally, or internationally shared resource.

Water bodies such as Lake Kariba, Lake Chad, and Lake Victoria, are internationally shared resources. The institutions set up for the joint management of such water bodies will reflect multiple political boundaries and mutual concerns. Nevertheless, the management of a lake or reservoir straddling international boundaries requires the harmonization of institutions and procedures within the riparian states. This harmonization means that the objectives of the sovereign institutions in the management of their resources and economic development do not conflict with the common objectives and shared values with respect to the management of the shared water body. These common objectives can be broadly described as the sustainable utilization of lake or reservoir resources by ensuring good water quality and minimizing stakeholder conflicts, while maximizing stakeholder benefits. Any investment in the sustainable use of a water resource should be to the mutual benefit of all the riparian states. Therefore, there must be state and international institutions that are the ultimate custodians of shared values and objectives of the riparian states.

Whatever form such management institutions assume, they must have the following properties:

• They must be legal institutions, established in terms of national law in the case of national institutions or international law, where two or more nations are involved.
• They must enjoy a measure of operational autonomy, with well defined referral and consultative procedures.
• They must be adequately funded by their respective governments.
• They must be accountable, through appropriate institutions, to the stakeholders.
• They must be sufficiently flexible in their architecture to respond to changing environmental issues in lake and reservoir management.
• Such institutions can only operate efficiently in an atmosphere of peace and good governance.

The state itself must have clear objectives in environmental management.

A second, but less legally defined condition of shared resources, is when a lake or reservoir is largely or entirely within the borders of one sovereign state, but is part of a hydrological system that traverses several states. The political difficulty in institutionalizing river watershed management is that there are no economic incentives for upstream states to incur resource management costs for the benefit of downstream users, unless there are services which can be transferred from downstream investment to upstream states, such as hydropower or fish exports from a downstream state to an upstream state. Unless equitable resource management protocols and functional institutional and legal frameworks are mutually agreed upon, regional tensions may develop.

There are no standard international protocols, equivalent, for example, to the Helsinki Rules, for addressing the upstream-downstream relationship, except the good neighbor principle. Therefore, an international convention on the management of water resources in an international river watershed is appropriate. Such a convention would be designed to ensure equity among states of disparate development stages, where future needs of less developed partners would be recognized.

A number of case studies are now provided as examples of successes and problems with management of eutrophication.

Table of Contents

• Brochure
• 
• 



• International Year of Forests
• 
• 



• World Environment Day
• 
• 



• UNEP Campaign
• 
•