Water management and water infrastructure are preconditions for civilization, and demands on our water resources are increasing. In some regions these demands are exceeding capacities to supply water. Our old water institutions, laws, regulations, treaties and agreements are straining to meet the new demographic realities.
Throughout the world there is a growing need to build a capacity for integrated water management in order to create new opportunities for cooperation, community and peace building; to respond to scarcities; and to manage local, national and trans-boundary conflicts.
Building this capacity for integrated water management calls for a new dialogue between many different private and public communities - policy making, diplomatic, administrative, financial, legal and technical/scientific. This dialogue must also include the traditional water communities - industrial, urban, agricultural and transportation.
Water Policy provides a forum for this dialogue. It invites these communities into this forum both to shape and to be shaped by thinking and debate on water policy worldwide.
Water Policy is an Open Access journal publishing reviews, research papers and progress reports in, among others, the following areas: financial, diplomatic, organizational, legal, administrative and research; organized by country, region or river basin. Water Policy also publishes reviews of books and grey literature.
The journal will publish analyses, reviews and debates on all policy aspects of water resources. Examples of such topics are:
Ecosystems, engineering, management and restoration
Engineering and design
River-basin and watershed management
Multiple uses of water
Pollution monitoring and control
Management, use and sharing of trans-boundary waters, treaties and allocation agreements
Capacity building
Flood control and disaster management
Groundwater remediation and the conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water
Public participation, consensus building and confidence building
Conflict management and negotiations of water resources
Demand management
Commercialization of water
Integrated water resources management
Allocation of risks among stakeholders
Water Policy is published monthly.