engleski

Limited availability of water – main catalyst of merger between sector- oriented water management plans

Integrated approach in water management – one of the most important concepts underlying the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), can sometimes be rather difficult to pursue, particularly in areas where the combination between long tradition of sector-oriented approach and administrative sub- division in spatial units that do not match natural river basin boundaries has evidently created non-sustainable and sometimes overly constraining water management setting. Such systems are characterised with very limited capability to provide solutions in normal circumstances, let alone in situations that appear to be a result of constantly decreasing availability of water resources recorded in the last couple of decades. This paper presents a series of concrete examples (encountered in the westernmost part of the Republic of Croatia, i.e. in the County of Istria) on how simple and apparently convincing considerations can help in triggering off and accelerating the whole decision making chain to react unexpectedly promptly and to give birth to reasonable decisions that wouldn't have been reached without the idea (initially considered to be a blasphemy) to solicitate mergers between traditionally incompatible and sector-oriented water management plans (public water supply, irrigation in agriculture, industrial water supply), competing for the same water resources in the region. Starting from the real-world examples in Istria, the paper discuss feasibility and sustainability of the proposed integrated solutions that are not motivated neither by regulations nor previous plans, but are rather a result of pure coincidence that the task to update several existing plans was assigned to the same independent entity which, as proven by later developments, has devised the plan inherently compatible with disadvantageous economic context that is now stumbling many national economies.

water management; sectorial plans; water supply; irrigation

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