Evolution of Approaches on Water Resources Management and Integrated Watershed Management Planning: Complement, Synergies, and the Way Forward

Several approaches were used since the beginning of times to do water management. Relatively recent is the integrated water resources management (IWRM) proposed as an intent to bring a standard approach which is currently included in all recent water laws in Latin America and the Caribbean. An older approach, also guiding water and natural resource management is integrated watershed management (IWM). The beginning of this concept in Latin America probably started in the 1950s, focused on planning and building infrastructure for water exploitation. An evolution toward a conservationist approach without focusing on the human being occurred in the 1980s. In the 1990s the focus changed toward the family, people, and communities, but still lacking participation in decision-making processes. These stages of IWM are sectoral, usually under the exclusive competence of governmental agencies. Around 2006 to date, IWM has an integral systemic and interdisciplinary approach; understood as co-management. Nowadays, emerging concepts as nature-based solutions, ecosystem-based adaptation, resilience of socioecological system, and one water reinforce and guide adjustments in watershed and water resource management practice. Such emerging concepts, together with the sustainable development goals, properly integrated, could visualize how IWRM and IWM are the best vehicles to operationalize all of them.