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The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment

Integrated Water Management for Sustainable Use

These projects address the comprehensive, holistic management of water systems (lakes, rivers, wetlands, groundwater, estuaries) for sustainable use, including the maintenance of the life-supporting ecosystem services they provide to humanity. They address the scientific/technical and socioeconomic/governance elements that underlie sustainable water resources, including identifying constraints to sustainable water use, the root causes of these constraints, and exploring feasible solutions for overcoming them. They focus largely, though not exclusively, on international and transboundary water systems, including their scientific and management implications. Current projects include the Integrated Lake Basin Management (ILBM) approach applied to lake basins in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United States.

Relevant publications include: (1) World Lake Vision; (2) Managing Lakes and their Basins for Sustainable Use; (3) Development of ILBM Platform Process; (4) Primer: Development of ILBM Platform Process; and (5) Guidelines for Lake Brief Development. All can be downloaded from the ILEC website. 
 

  • Integrated Lake Basin Management – In cooperation with the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation (ILEC), this project focuses on development and application of a comprehensive, ecosystem-based approach for managing lakes and reservoir and their basins, as well as the upstream, downstream and sub-surface water systems to which they are hydrologically linked. Involving the range of relevant scientific/technical, socioeconomic and governance elements fundamental to integrated management of these water systems, it includes case studies and lessons learned from managing lakes and reservoirs in countries throughout the world, including China, India, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Zimbabwe and the United States.

  • ILBM and Lake Chapala/Lerma River Basin (Mexico) – As a follow-up activity to the 14th World Lake Conference, co-sponsored by the Meadows Center and the International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC), held in Austin, Texas, USA; and being undertaken in cooperation with ILEC and Corazón de la Tierra (Heart of the Earth), a Mexican non-governmental organization (NGO), this ongoing project focuses on application of the ILBM process to the Lake Chapala/Lerma River Basin in Mexico.