Sea and water management

Water management is one the world’s most pressing issues. Major regions and subcontinents have serious problems of water shortage, flooding and pollution that present serious risks to people and wetland ecosystems that provide invaluable services. Technical solutions to water management are often difficult to implement cost-effectively for many reasons, including the scale and inter-jurisdictional complexity of water systems and their multiple uses, many of which conflict, impeding cooperation and cost-sharing. In some cases, there is also skewed interdependency, for example, where upstream jurisdictions control the water on which downstream jurisdictions depend or undertake major developments that have adverse downstream impacts