Cross-sectoral Approaches Help Build Water Resilience – Reflections

Future challenges for the planet includes e.g. population growth, climate change and urbanisation. The combined pressure from these and other processes on water, energy and ecosystem services call for cross-sectoral approaches to increase the resilience of society, with particular aim to reduce hydro-climatic hazards and secure water availability of sufficient quantity and quality. In the global strife to achieve this water resilience, we pinpoint four strategies of pivotal importance. These are: 1) to ensure sustainable utilisation of ecosystems and their services; 2) to ensure that interventions for increased resilience are tailor-made to local conditions; 3) to broaden livelihood opportunities in order to make income-generating activities less dependent on only one sector or resource; and 4) to facilitate interactions between rural and urban areas and processes. Although the challenges mentioned are largely human induced, the power to address these are also within human reach. It is only if we properly facilitate work building on the linkages between humans and the environment that we can enhance water resilience.