Principles

Integrated River Basin Management - delivering economic, social and environmental benefits

Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) provides a basin-wide framework for making strategic decisions in favour of water management that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. It assumes that the needs and expectations of all "water stakeholders" must be assessed jointly, at a basin-wide level, and that final decisions must be based on the best possible environmental and socio-economic information. For more on IRBM visit the WWF international website.

IRBM is now widely accepted as the most appropriate approach for delivering sustainable use of the world's limited freshwater resources. The basis for this approach was set out in Agenda 21 and has since been endorsed by the World Water Forum, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. In the European Union IRBM has been encapsulated within the Water Framework Directive