Water P-Notes
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These practitioner notes (P-Notes) are published by the Water Sector Board of the Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank Group. P-Notes are a synopsis of larger World Bank documents in the water sector.
Items in this collection
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Publication
Climate Change and Urban Water Utilities : Challenges and Opportunities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-06)The impact of climate change is increasingly important for the design, construction, and maintenance of water sector infrastructure. Average global temperatures are on the rise, causing cycles of extreme weather: droughts and flooding are becoming common; seawater levels are rising; and many locations are considerably drier, impacting water sources such as lakes and rivers. Groundwater supplies are under stress due to decreasing precipitation rates and increasing extraction rates. Urban water systems must meet the demands of expanding industry needs and rapid population growth. Pollution adds to the growing threats to water resources, increasing treatment requirements for providing safe water to city residents. With two-thirds of the world's megacities located in regions that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, urban water utilities are facing an increasing need to improve the management of water resources and associated infrastructure. Diversifying sources of water supply will become increasingly important whether through the construction of new storage facilities, the appropriate and sustainable extraction of groundwater, water trading or conservation, or the use of recycled or desalinated water. This water note, based on the input of 20 large utilities around the world presents the perceptions, experiences, and approaches to addressing climate related challenges of urban areas in developing, middle income, and developed countries. -
Publication
Strategic Environmental Assessment : Improving Water Resources Governance and Decision Making
(Washington, DC, 2010-06)The Sustainable Development Network (SDN) calls for elevating the environment into upstream processes such as policy, programmatic, and investment dialogue. In its 2002 environment strategy, the Bank committed to use strategic environmental assessments (SEAs), an environmental planning tool for improving decision-making at the strategic level of decision-making, policies, legislation, strategies, plans, and programs (PLSPP), and as a process for improving public policy design and good governance of natural resources. SEAs share many concepts and characteristics as integrated water resources management (IWRM), the accepted paradigm for efficient, equitable, and sustainable management of water resources since the 1990s. IWRM recognizes the dual nature of the environment as both a water using sector and a provider of services that maintains water resources for all sectors. The overall goal of this report is to help water resources and environment professionals use SEAs to effectively implement the principles of IWRM. It recommends a framework for expanding use of SEAs to mainstream environmental considerations in water resources policy, legislative and, institutional reforms, planning and development lending decision-making as well as for enabling adaptation in the water sector. -
Publication
Tanzania - Public Expenditure Review (PER) of the Water Sector
(Washington, DC, 2010-06)Tanzania initiated a forward-looking National Water Policy (NAWAPO-2002) to promote an integrated approach to water resources management and improve water supply and sanitation service (WSS) delivery in both urban and rural areas. To do this, the Government initiated in 2004 a doubling of budget allocations to the water sector from $60 million to $120 million. It also has shifted the role of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MOWI), moving from central control of water projects to facilitating and funding projects and strengthening sector institutions and capacity at the national, basin, and local government levels. Much of Tanzania's capital budget goes to fund water supply infrastructure, largely driven by the focus on achieving the millennium development goals. Donors supply most of the capital funding and are coordinating funds through a Sector Wide Approach to Planning (SWAp) to maximize effectiveness. This public expenditure review focuses on the quantity and quality of Tanzania's public funding process to assess how well budget allocations for the water sector actually translate into better water and sanitation service delivery. -
Publication
Environmental Flows in Water Resources Policies, Plans, and Projects - Part 1: Findings and Recommendations and Part 2: Case Studies
(Washington, DC, 2010-04)Environmental flows are central to equitable distribution of and access to water and services provided by aquatic ecosystems. They refer to the quality, quantity, and timing of water flows required maintaining the components, functions, processes and resilience of aquatic ecosystems that provide goods and services to people. They are fundamental for sustainable water resources development, benefits sharing, and poverty alleviation. Nonetheless, water resources development planners have often overlooked environmental flows or addressed them inadequately. This two-part report, based on the Bank's economic sector analysis, shows their central importance for Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and presents data, findings, and recommendations, based on in-depth case study analysis, to help make environmental water allocation an integral part of IWRM. -
Publication
Making a Large Irrigation Scheme Work : A Case Study from Mali
(Washington, DC, 2010-04)Located in the heart of Mali, the Office du Niger (ON) is one of the oldest and largest irrigation schemes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The French, who began the scheme in 1932, planned on developing about 1,000,000 hectares (ha) over a period of 50 years. The scheme did not provide the expected resources for cotton and rice farming, and a major source of exploitation of farmers. Change began in the 1980's with Government/donor led reforms that resulted in dissolving the monopoly power of ON and increasing citizen participation in its management. This report provides the context and details on how the government of Mali became committed to reform of the ON, an irrigated rice scheme. The government's decision is presented as the outcome of a series of small power shifts triggered by pro-reform players. Reform advocates played a key role, and identified opportunities and applied their skills to tilt the power balance between agency and farmers to further goals of sustainability and partnership. Initial steps for reform had a significant impact, as they raised yields and farmer incomes in a single season. Coalitions grew into partnership institutions that became effective enough for government to consolidate them into a legal and financial framework. This case study serves as an illustration of how the World Bank and other donors can help governments turn public irrigation systems into financially sustainable operations. -
Publication
Making the Most of Scarcity : Accountability for Better Water Management in the Middle East and North Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06)Most of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) cannot meet current water demand. Many countries face full-blown crises, and the situation is likely to get even worse. Estimates show that per capita water availability will be cut in half by 2050, with serious consequences for aquifers and natural hydrological systems. Demand for water supplies and irrigation services will change as economies grow and populations increase, with an attendant need to address industrial and urban pollution. Some 60 percent of the region's water flows across international borders, further complicating the resource management challenge. Rainfall patterns are predicted to shift as a result of climate change. The social, economic, and budgetary consequences of these challenges are enormous. The supply of drinking water could become more erratic, necessitating greater reliance on expensive desalination technologies, and increasing drought would require emergency supplies brought by tanker or barge. Service outages would put stress on expensive network and distribution infrastructure. Unreliable sources of irrigation water would depress farmer incomes, economic and physical dislocation would increase with the depletion of aquifers and unreliability of supplies, and local conflicts could intensify. All of this would have short- and long-term effects on economic growth and poverty, exacerbate social tensions within and between communities, and put increasing pressure on public budgets. -
Publication
Public-Private Partnerships to Reform Urban Water Utilities in Western and Central Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-05)Western and Central Africa have lengthy experience with public-private partnerships (PPPs), both for water supply and for combined power and water supply utilities. Cote d'Ivoire's successful PPP dates from 1959, and, over the last two decades, as many as 15 out of 23 countries in the region have experimented with PPPs. Eleven PPPs are studied here, and detailed performance indicators are reported for six large cases-Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Gabon. These PPPs all have had at least four years of private operation. Through its successes and failures, the Western and Central African experience offers interesting lessons for other developing countries on how to improve the quality of urban water supply services, increase the efficiency of operations, and establish the financial credibility of the sector. -
Publication
Addressing China’s Water Scarcity
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-05)China's water resources are scarce and unevenly distributed. It has the sixth largest amount of renewable resources in the world, but a per capita availability that is only one-fourth the world average and among the lowest for a major country. The country is under serious water stress, and its problems are made more severe by the fact that resources are unevenly distributed, both spatially and temporally. Per capita water availability in northern China is less than one-fourth that in southern China, one eleventh of the world average, and less than the threshold level that defines water scarcity. A monsoonal climate also means that China is subject to frequent droughts and floods, often simultaneously in different regions, as precipitation varies greatly from year to year and season to season. The complexity of water resource management in China requires a transition from a traditional system with the government as the main decision making entity toward a modern approach that relies on a sound legal framework, effective institutional arrangements, transparent decision making and information disclosure, and active public participation. This will require that laws are straightforward and not contradictory, with mechanisms and procedures for enforcing them. It also should entail the creation of a new multi-sectoral state agency tasked with overseeing water management policy at the national level. -
Publication
Competition or Cooperation? A New Era for Agricultural Water Management
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04)Reliable supplies of water for agriculture have helped meet rapidly rising demand for food in developing countries, making farms more profitable, reducing poverty, and helping vast regions of the world develop more dynamic and diversified economies. Can these successes be sustained with demand for food rising and water resources waning? That is the challenge now facing policy makers, planners, and practitioners in agricultural water management (AWM), as well as their allies in the World Bank and other development organizations. -
Publication
Monitoring and Evaluating Agricultural Water Management Projects : Better Tools for Better Results
(Washington, DC, 2009-04)Increasing agricultural production is necessary to feed growing populations, raise the incomes of poor farmers, and boost national export revenues. But in poor, water-scarce areas of the world, it is impossible to raise production without first finding ways to get more out of limited supplies of water, the ultimate scarce resource. Increasing the efficiency with which water is used is one of the chief goals of agricultural water management (AWM). Continual improvements in the efficiency of water use depend on close monitoring and careful evaluation. But despite the scale and scope of AWM projects around the world, and their criticality to global efforts to reduce rural poverty and increase food security, the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of AWM projects need considerable improvement. The report stressed the need for greater emphasis on outcomes and impact measurement in project design. It also concluded that the effective implementation of projects was routinely compromised by inadequate supervision. M&E is strongest when there is a participatory quality to data collection and evaluation, so that stakeholders are invested in the project's successful implementation and aware of its successes and failures.