Water resources development: Vicious and virtuous circles

Sustainable development is an intergeneration concept. It cannot be achieve d without far-reaching visions, nor without specific knowledge, solutions, and actions. The academic world is witnessing strong tendencies of speciali zation and fragmentation; whereas the challenges to policy making lie in in tegration, interdisciplinarity, and broadness. From a narrow standpoint, ma ny things appear "linear", with straightforward, one-directional causal rel ationships. In reality, however, they constitute complex interconnected net works with many feedbacks and cycles. A broad view is necessary when identi fying such interconnections. The challenges to water-resources development in most parts of the world are increasing. Besides present tasks, the secto r professionals should be encouraged to broaden their expertise from fragme nted, highly specialized approaches to integrated, multidisciplinary ones.