Water players and decision makers

A range of players are involved in any issue relating to water resources and their use.
There are supporters and opponents, villains and victims, ‘Davids’ and ‘Goliaths’.
However, for almost all players, the conservation and sustainable development of water resources is an increasingly important priority.
The process of weighing up the motivations and perceptions of players is called values analysis.
1. It is an important factor in the evaluation of issues and in decision-making.
Political
1. International organisations (e.g. UN), government departments (e.g. DEFRA), regional and local councils, lobbyists and pressure groups
Economic
1. World Bank, governments, developers, utility companies (e.g. Thames Water), agriculture, industry (esp. chemicals and food), TNCs and businesses (including energy companies)
Social
1. Individuals, residents, indigenous groups, landowners, farmers, consumers, health officials, scientists and NGOs (e.g. Water Aid)
Enviornmental
1. Conservationists, scientists, planners, international organisations (e.g. FAO) and NGOs (e.g. WWF and People & Planet)
Water futures for India and its neighbours
1. The Indian subcontinent has an insecure water future because:
  1. it has considerable supplies of water provided by three of the world’s major rivers, but its monsoon climate creates extremes of flooding and drought
  2. rapid population growth and urbanisation, the existence of a large rural population and recent industrialisation are creating an unsustainable demand for water
  3. the political division of some of its major drainage basins does not help water management, and disputes with neighbouring countries over water are ongoing
The Ebro River in Spain
1. In July 2001 the Spanish government approved a scheme to divert water from the lower Ebro valley to supply cities, farmers and tourists in the parched southeast of the country
2. Three years later, the newly elected government cancelled the diversion project and replaced it with cheaper, I more localised schemes, including desalination plants.
3. This decision was the outcome of a hotly contested debate between players in favour of and opposed to the diversion project.
  1. The case for
    1. Big international investors were concerned because they had marketed the south- east of Spain as the ‘new Florida’.
    2. Vast tourist developments between Alicante and Almeria costing billions of euros, many based on new golf courses, were to be sited in areas supplied with Ebro water.
    3. People in Murcia and Almeria saw the Ebro scheme as the beginning of a new future, allowing the development of holiday homes, golf resorts and Europe’s biggest tourism complex at Cabo Cope.
    4. The head of the Murcia regional government claimed desalination was unproven and expensive.
    5. EU funding was available, but may not be in the future.
  2. The case against
    1. Environmentalists in the north protested that the diversion scheme was a misuse of a scarce resource and that it would have a drastic impact on the Ebro and its fragile delta.
    2. The Environment Minister claimed that the desalination plants would provide the same amount of water sooner and more cheaply.
    3. The new national government also promised to improve water recycling and make irrigation systems more efficient.
    4. Environmentalists claimed that the aquifers of the Ebro basin were already drying out because of over-extraction.
    5. They, and other critics, felt that the subsidies offered to farmers for irrigation encouraged the use of unsuitable land.

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Water players and decision makers

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	Created by Jodie Goodacre over 10 years ago