WATER-RESOURCES PLANNING IN A STRATEGIC CONTEXT - LINKING THE WATER SECTOR TO THE NATIONAL-ECONOMY

In many parts of the developing world investment in water resources ta kes a large proportion of the available public investment funds. As th e conflicts for funds between the water and other sectors become more severe the traditional ways of analyzing and planning water investment s has to move way from project-by-project (or even a river basin-by-ri ver basin) approaches to include the relationships of water investment s to other sectors and to overall national development policies. Curre nt approaches to water resources investments are too narrow. There is a need for ways to expand the strategic thinking of water sector manag ers. This paper develops a water resources planning methodology with t he primary objective of giving insights into the linking of water sect or investments and macroeconomic policies. The model optimizes the pre sent value of investments for water resources development, while embed ding a macroeconomic model into the framework to allow for an examinat ion of the interactions between water investments, the growth in the a gricultural sector, and the performance of the overall economy. A case study of Bangladesh is presented which shows how strategic thinking c ould lead to widely differing implications for water investments than would conventional water resources systems planning models.