Water governance literature assessment

The challenge of managing water ecosystem services in areas of rapidly increasing competition for limited water resources. Maintaining the integrity of water ecosystems using approaches that also impact positively on levels of poverty and take explicit account of the risks and uncertainties of climate change is an even greater challenge. There is general agreement that improvements to water governance are a necessary part of the solution to the specific challenges that fall within this nexus of water ecosystem management and poverty reduction within the context of climate change. The aims of this paper are to: 1) Identify relevant water governance trends, challenges and knowledge gaps and 2) Identify and recommend research that has the potential bring about significant improvements in the management of water ecosystems services and poverty reduction in the context of climate change. Two areas of research have been identified and are recommended for financial support by DFID. The first centres research into water governance approaches, methods and tools. The second focuses on assessment and mitigation of the negative externalities that will almost certainly result from a rapid and essentially unplanned worldwide expansion in the production of biofuels.