Stewardship arrangements for water: An evaluation of reasonable use in sustainable catchment or watershed management systems

Abstract

Integrated governance arrangements to implement sustainability attempt to redefine the nature of human-environment interaction and foster more environmentally and socially beneficial outcomes from the use of resources. In this chapter, stewardship is examined as a foundation for resource management arrangements that connect natural resource use with landscape ecological limits and the social wellbeing of communities. The objective of the chapter is to evaluate catchment or watershed management approaches in four case studies that define stewardship expectations regarding resource user rights and interests. The evaluation adopts a model of stewardship to interrogate and extend resource user accountability for sustainability in a defined catchment or watershed.