WATER AND ADAPTATION Principles, Positions and Mexico´s Experience

Water Day; Bonn, June 2, 2010

WATER AND ADAPTATION Principles, Positions and Mexico´s Experience

Water Day; Bonn, June 2, 2010

PRINCIPLES

• Historical responsibility

• Polluters pays principle

• Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities

• Precautionary principle

PROPOSALS

1. International Insurance Mechanism to deal with water related disasters induced from climate change (floods and droughts).

2. International Mechanism to compensate the loss and damage from climate change impacts (land and water source).

3. Ecosystem Based Adaptation to enhance the adaptative and resilience capacity of vulnerable communities and ecosystems from climate change.

PROPOSALS

3. Ecosystem Based Adaptation to enhance the adaptative and resilience capacity of vulnerable communities and ecosystems from climate change.

• Healthy, bio-diverse environments role in increasing resilience

• Adaptation as an institutional

• Water as a “unit” not as a “sector”

EXPERIENCEMéxico; New water management models

Ecosystems and land use are recognized on water

management

Strengthening of rural communities

People recognizes the basin and the importance

of its conservation

Environmental services valuation

Water governance in the basin

Environmental Flow

Water allocation to ecosystems

Stakeholders recognize the

problems

Environmetal Flow and Land

use assessment

Conservation of water recharge

and supply zones

Sustainable water

management in rural areas

Identification of environmental

services

Stakeholders understand the

problems

Compensation mechanisms

IRBM Plan

Stakeholders participate in solving the problems

Basin Agreements

Consumptive uses of water < or = (natural water availabitiy –

environmental flow)

- Water quantity and quality- River restoration and flood plain management

- Water reserves

Sustainable use of water

Social organization

Demostrative Projects

Operative basin councils

Technical and financial capacity

Water and land use

management criteria

Cross-cutting activities

IRBM Strategy

LESSONS

• Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a social and technical accepted process, with current important achievements and goals, and with key challenges ahead.

• The shortest way society can take to build resilience is to strength and improve IWRM, rather than promote an adaptation process by itself.

 • IWRM must focus all their capabilities to ensure, under different

scenarios, a sustainable water extraction, in which ecosystems are recognized as the water provider, rather than a water user.

FORWARD LOOKING

CONAGUA….

• National E-flow Standard

• Regional Dialogue