In ancient times, water was the guiding path for nomadic people and was also at the center of civilizations as they began to rise. However, as nomadic people began settling down in more permanent locations and as civilizations advanced and spread out, a source of water was not always close by or adequate enough to sustain populations. When water was not nearby, civilizations constructed simple, yet sometimes elaborate, water systems to control the water and to bring it to them.
Moving into recent times, there has not much difference in the basic concepts of managing water resources. It largely remains the same: getting adequate supplies to sustain a population, except now we have a much larger population to sustain. We also have more advanced technology, and we have built more complex and larger water control systems because of that.
However, as the global population increases, so does the demand on limited resources, especially water. Within the last thirty years or so, people have begun to realize that we need to stop exploiting and degrading our natural environment. From this, an environmental movement has spawned and has now evolved into a sustainability movement. The basis of the sustainability movement argues that we should focus on the social, economic, and environmental sectors in decision- and policy-making processes. Sustainability also considers goals for the long-term in order to secure the needs of future generations as well as the needs of the present.
Decision- and policy-makers have also been looking at water resource management through the lens of sustainability, which has ultimately prompted the recent paradigm shift. Water resource management is beginning to shift from the “hard” path to the “soft” path (more on this later). Water resource management is moving towards the sustainable development and sustainable use of water resources. With this, ecological sustainability and ecological economics are beginning to take the front stage as water policies are being implemented. In order to manage water resources for the present and future generations, a sustainable approach needs to be taken in which the integrity of the natural environment is included, along with social equity and economic vitality, in the decisions and policies surrounding water resource management.
