ABSTRACT
This overview of a few of the dominant approaches to water resources management throughout history highlights society’s constant struggle with harnessing the potential of water resources while mitigating its associated risks and challenges. Management approaches have had to adjust to new types of challenges, as population growth has increased water demand and competition between users and sectors and with climate change as a risk-multiplier. In the past three decades, multiple paradigms have emerged. Despite their differences, these approaches shared multiple commonalities, such as decentralization, the integration of issues and sectors, the inclusion of a larger range of actors at multiple levels, and a shift away from exclusively engineering-based solutions towards conservation, efficient water use, and green infrastructure. Around the world, water resources management actors have incorporated good governance principles within laws and policies.
