What Is Water Resource Management and Why Is It Important?

Water is one of the natural elements supporting human life. Yet, as climate change gets worse, water sources can be scarce and threatened in the future.

Moreover, water resources must be managed optimally to provide benefits to humans. Thus, water resource management is needed.

Then, what is water resource management? To learn more about water management, read the explanation below!

What Is Water Resource Management?

Water resource management is a part of water cycle planning, developing, distributing, and managing water usage optimally.

Typically, water resource management controls water flow related to hydrological properties, such as river flows and sediment volumes.

The management aims to optimize water usage by ensuring that the water provided has high quality. This is important because the water managed will be used for sanitation, drinking, food production, power plants, recreational water, and water transportation.

In addition, water resource management is strongly related to risk management regarding water, such as contamination, drought, and floods.

Furthermore, the management aims to maintain water safety because it is difficult to predict and plan the condition, especially with external causes like climate change and other human activities.

Therefore, integrated and long-term management is needed to overcome water scarcity, future uncertainty, deteriorating water quality and aquatic ecosystem, and frequent floods and droughts.

Regarding water resources, according to the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Indonesia commits to maintaining the water resources to maximize the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reach in 2045.

In fact, the Indonesian Government had targeted the sustainability of water resources in 2024, which were ensuring that 100% of residences had proper potable water, increasing the national water resource capacity up to 2.3 billion m3, ensuring that 30% of the residences had water-piped potable water, and owning sustainable irrigation water from dam of 355.8 thousand hectares.

Other than that, the water resources management in Indonesia is regulated in Government Law Number 30 of 2024.

It discusses the process of compiling and establishing water resource management policies, water resource management plans, management patterns, implementation of water resource infrastructure construction, water resources maintenance, water resources conservation, the destructive power of water control, and water resources usage.

Why Are Water Resource Management and Conservation Important?

Climate change makes water more scarce. Thus, when water is still accessible, we must manage it immediately and optimally. Some of the methods are water conservation and seawater desalination.

By doing water conservation, water will be moved from the rich area to the needy area, or the drought region, through a specialized water channel.

In several countries globally, they use a wind trap to catch the water particles from the air, saving more water for many needs.

Then, seawater desalination can be the option to manage water resources and replace fresh water when needed.

Because climate change keeps affecting the water resource, proper conservation and management must be carried out for sustainability.

Challenges in Water Resource Management

In doing water resource management, you might encounter some challenges, like water pollution. Many rivers and lakes are contaminated by waste. Though water is an essential element in human life.

Aside from that, cases of drought are increasing with the worsening of climate change over time, making many rivers start to dry up and become polluted. The question is, will humans still have enough water in the future?

Thus, the advancement of sustainable and eco-friendly solutions must go on. To avoid contaminating water supplies, people need to adopt more sustainable lifestyles.

Moreover, we can make some efforts to preserve water, such as reducing water surface evaporation and transporting water through channels and pipes.

Humans need to adjust their lifestyle and activities to prevent polluting the environment, ensuring continued access to water for future generations.

Example of Water Resource Management

Now, you already know the definition of water resource management and why it is important for human sustainable life.

In Indonesia, one of the companies managing water resources is Krakatau Tirta Industri (KTI), an affiliate of Chandra Asri Group. KTI oversees water from the Cidanau River, the Rawa Dano Natural Lake, and the Cipasauran River.

Krakatau Tirta Industri operates clean water installations, demineralized water installations, wastewater management, and a Water Recycle Plant to fulfill the water needs for industry and the public, especially in Cilegon City.

KTI uses advanced technology in regulating water, such as ion exchange, biological treatment, membrane, and ultrafiltration. KTI also ensures that the wastewater is managed safely and will not pollute the community water through wastewater management.

So, if your company needs a trustworthy clean water and demineralized water provider as well as wastewater manager, let Krakatau Tirta Industri do the work!