This paper reviews the progress with respect to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in Mediterranean countries, as addressed within the activities of the Nostrum-Dss project, a Coordination Action funded by the 6th Framework Programme of the EC, with a particular emphasis on the current use of decision support tools (DSS). The IWRM paradigm is a comprehensive management framework, which integrates the different aspects of water resources from the underlying ecological and physical aspects, to the socio-economic values and needs (horizontal integration); and calls for increasing decentralisation and privatisation of water services (vertical integration), and the devolution of planning authority, without however forgetting the need to ensure... |