Systems approaches to water management research

This paper provides an introduction to systems approaches to water manageme nt research. Common concepts in systems thinking are defined and the concep ts of level, system boundaries and emergent properties are described. Diffe rences between hard- and soft-systems approaches are presented with example s. Finally, the spectrum of approaches to water management research are dis cussed in terms of their level and degree of holism and in the concert of t he U.K. Department for International Development's Renewable Natural Resour ces Research Strategy. A greater emphasis on more subjective and holistic a pproaches is recommended in order to define more clearly the researchable c onstraints in water management. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights r eserved.