Water Resources Management

Department of Management and Institutions

The Water Resources Management (WRM) core group specializes in the broad field of integrated water resources management.

It tests theories and analyzes data and contributes to the policies and strategies aimed at sustainable development and the wise use of water and environmental resources.

The activities of this core group include education and training, capacity building and advisory services, and initiating and conducting research.

The expertise of the WRM core in integrated water resources management is holistic and cross-cutting.

It covers the linkages between the biophysical and the social-institutional dimensions of water resources, i.e. those aspects that shape and regulate the behaviour of people with regard to water resources.

The most pressing contemporary challenges in the water sector involve issues that encompass physical and non-physical aspects simultaneously.

Accordingly, innovations are most likely to be found at the interface of these dimensions.

The WRM core wishes to contribute to three normative goals – the efficient use of water, the good governance of water systems, and sustainable water resource systems – by pursuing three lines of research:

Biophysical processes of the hydrological system, in order to enhance the efficient use of water;
Institutional dimensions of water management from local to global levels, including policy, legal, social-political, economic processes and the functioning of organizations, in order to promote good governance of water systems; and
Integrative properties of water management, whereby concepts such as sustainable development and integrated water resources management are understood as emergent properties of the interplay between physical and institutional processes, in order to achieve sustainable water resource systems.