« Water security has emerged as a major theoretical framework in environmental governance and resource management. An insecure supply of clean water and safe access to freshwater and sanitation raises the dangers of economic disruption, social tension, and even conflict over water resources at both the domestic and international levels. These dangers are highest where water is scarce and governance (at local, national or international levels) is poor.Water scarcity, aging or inadequate infrastructure, population growth, pollution, more intense and more frequent storms, droughts, and floods—all these pressures are converging to lend urgency to the need to increase global investment in water infrastructures and to develop smart water conservation and management solutions.Water security is a concept with several aspects and dimensions. In a recent study (Varis et al., 2017), water security is defined in four dimensions, each consisting of two complementary aspects: direct-indirect, macro-micro, technical-political, and peace-conflict.We will highlight some water challenges in the direct and indirect dimensions, introduce a conceptualization of water security that appreciates its complexity, and present some efforts to secure water development for the future at different scales, with more focus on water and agriculture, water and health, and rural development to show how it could be used to develop a framework for all stakeholders in a community to address their current and future water needs. Such frameworks, developed by communities, should form the basis for a national water policy based on sustainability »
