The newly released report on “Water Demand Management (WDM): The Mediterranean Experience” published by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) highlights the potential for WDM as a tool to allocate scarce water resources across competing uses to achieve sustainable water management.
August 2012: The Global Water Partnership (GWP) has released its first Technical Focus paper, examining the implementation of water demand management (WDM) as a means of sustainable development in the region, through policies designed to improve technical, social, economic, environmental and institution efficiencies of water use as part of the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD).
The paper, titled “Water Demand Management: The Mediterranean Experience,” examines: the emergence of the WDM concept in the Mediterranean; WDM tools and examples; and prospects for water-related public policies. It then summarizes the lessons learned from applying WDM in the Mediterranean, where 60% of the global population living in water poverty reside. The paper highlights the role of Plan Blue, under the aegis of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in the development of the WDM concept.
The paper identifies WDM as one means of adapting water policy to climate change, and ensuring that environmental and ecosystem water demands are met. It concludes that WDM is useful suite of tools to compromise between competing uses across sectors and manage stress on water resources, and encourages other regions follow the Mediterranean WDM model. [Publication: Water Demand Management: The Mediterranean Experience] [GWP Press Release on the Launch of the Technical Paper]