**3. Water resources management**

Freshwater, which includes water in glaciers, lakes, reservoirs, ponds, rivers, streams, wetlands, and groundwater, is a limited natural resource. Therefore, many countries globally are experiencing water scarcity due to increased water demand due to the increasing population and living standards [7]. Some of the potential challenges associated with water resources management are low availability per capita, uneven temporal and spatial distributions, inconsistency in spatial distributions and productivity, and fragile water ecology and environment [7]. Traditional approaches for water resource management were to provide adequate water for municipal use without paying enough attention to its sustainable development and management [8].

Water resource management includes political, economic, cultural, social, technical, legislative, and organizational ingredients in one river basin or a total water cycle [8]. River basin management is indeed a complex process that requires several components to be incorporated, such as precipitation, evaporation, evapotranspiration, infiltration, and other inputs and withdrawals from the river basin system (**Figure 1**). Therefore, new strategies, advanced tools, techniques, monitoring, and evaluation system are critical and must include most aspects for effective water resource management in a river basin.

The challenge is that integrated water resources management (IWRM) should address complex water issues to maximize economic and social welfare equitably without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems [9, 10]. In addition, climate change impacts increased water demand and the challenges for integrated water resources management [11]. Despite several challenges, at a conceptual level, IWRM has gradually become an accepted framework for good water governance [12].

This section includes four chapters focusing on water resources management. For example, while one chapter focused on trend analysis of streamflow and precipitation in a river basin to support water resources management, the other discussed the characteristics and process interactions in natural fluvial riparian ecosystems. Further, this section investigated the impact of hydraulic infrastructures on the water resources management of the river basin. This section also conducted a comparative

*Introductory Chapter: Water Resources Planning, Monitoring, Conservation, and Management DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109176*

### **Figure 1.**

*Driving parameters essential to quantify for effective river basin management.*

analysis of the precipitation variation in relation to the water availability in the rivers for the previous period and subsequent periods to determine the change in the availability of water in the ecosystem.
