Introduction

Water stress is a global problem with far-reaching economic and social implications. The mitigation of water stress at regional scale depends not just on technological innovations but also on the development of new integrated water management tools and decision-making practices. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, water resources management was primarily addressed as an engineering challenge. However, the realisation that effective management for the benefit of multiple stakeholders is crucially dependent on an understanding of a wide variety of natural, economic, political and social processes occurring at different spatial and temporal scales has shifted the emphasis towards a softer framing of both the challenge and appropriate interventions. Those individuals and institutions that have a remit to manage water resources for both human and environmental benefit are able to select from an increasing range of policy mechanisms (including economic, sociological, educational and technological as well as human-centred measures) and are increasingly concerned with developing understanding amongst stakeholder groups and cultivating the legitimacy of both problem characterisation and solution selection.