As water scarcity has increased globally, water allocation plans and agreements have taken on increasing significance in resolving international, regional, and local conflicts over access to water. While objectives and approaches have evolved over time, ultimately water resources allocation has fundamentally remained the process of determining (i) how much water is available for human use and (ii) how that water should be shared amongst competing users. This document considers modern approaches to dealing with these issues at the basin scale, particularly through the allocation of water amongst administrative regions – such as how water is divided amongst countries or provinces.
The paper Strategic Basin Allocation Planning summarises the findings of a collaborative effort between WWF, the General Institute of Water Resources & Hydropower Planning (GIWP), Ministry of Water Resources, People’s Republic of China and a number of leading international experts from the UK, South Africa, Australia and the US. The effort was originally conceived to review and disseminate modern approaches to water management in challenging environments, and provide new insights into strategic planning and risk management of water resources.
This paper focuses on basin water allocation planning and is one in a series of three covering (i) strategic basin allocation planning (ii) strategic basin planning, and (iii) strategic flood risk management.