Integrated Water Resource Management, environment and climate change

Water as a valuable resource

Based on the premise that water is understood as a social, cultural, environmental and economic value and that it is a human right, like sanitation, the FCAS interventions adopt an Integrated Water Resource Management approach, as a process that is implemented with the ultimate goal of achieving water security.

This means promoting the efficient, equitable and sustainable management of both water supply and demand, maintaining the necessary balance between use and conservation of water resources and their associated ecosystems. This management model also involves making progress in adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate risks, especially floods and droughts, favouring the creation of resilience in the communities with which it works.

This approach is fully coherent with the Spanish Cooperation Master Plan for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity 2024-2027, which advocates a climate justice and environmental sustainability approach as a cross-cutting and specific priority, encompassed within the priority pillar of a fair ecological transition.

For this reason, the Water Fund prioritises in its programmes actions that involve nature-based solutions (NbS) and promote the circular economy in partner countries, in a bid to move towards a more sustainable development and a fair ecological transition.

Support to Hydrological Planning in the framework of IWRM
In 2024, the Fund has advanced, together with the CODIA, in the preparation of the Technical Guide for Hydrological Planning in the framework of Integrated Water Resource Management, aimed at the Ibero-American sphere. Its development, in a participatory manner, will provide an eminently practical guide whose application will contribute to achieving water security and improve climate risk management. After completing the first phase of diagnosis, which analysed the legal and institutional framework of the CODIA member countries in order to determine the starting point for the development of hydrological planning, progress has been made throughout 2024 in two main lines of work.

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On the one hand, in the definition of the Conceptual Framework for water planning and, on the other hand, in the development of two key aspects: (1) the collection of case studies that will illustrate the Guide in each of its contents and (2) the formation and implementation of the task forces that will be in charge of defining the scope of the Guide. These groups, made up of different countries and institutions from the Ibero-American sphere, will work through regular meetings and a forum created to facilitate and extend the debate, and will work mainly on four strategic issues from the point of view of the preparation of water plans: Extreme Events and Climate Change, Financing, Transboundary Basin Management and Public Participation.
Support to the National Plan for the Use of Water Resources in the Dominican Republic
2024 has been a year of significant progress in water planning in the Dominican Republic through the development of the programme for the development of the National Plan for the Use of Water Resources in the Dominican Republic, where the work has allowed the analysis by water region of the situations of water stress and resource deficit. The general objective of the Plan is to «Promote integrated water resources management, creating strategies and plans, and developing instruments for water resources management, seeking social, environmental and economic balance, and institutional and programme organisation of priority actions».

This plan is being developed in response to the objectives of the Fourth Strategic Pillar of the National Development Strategy (END) 2030 (Act Number 1 – 2012 [Ley Número 1 – 2012]. G. O. No. 10656 of 26 January 2011), whose goal is to achieve «Sustainable management of the environment and adequate adaptation to climate change»; and its specific objective is to «Protect and make sustainable use of natural resources and improve the quality of the environment; develop an effective national system of integrated risk management, with the active participation of communities; and manage water resources efficiently and sustainably».

It is expected to be completed in 2025, following a valuable process of public participation, proposed from the outset of the plan and a significant training programme that will strengthen the National Institute of Water Resources (INDRHI).