Climate change is a fundamental catalyst of variations in water resources and provides additional stress by exasperating other external drivers.  The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted that ‘regional changes in climate have already affected hydrological systems and terrestrial and marine ecosystems’ (IPCC, 2001).

The WWDR3 points out that the main impacts of climate change on humans and the environment occur through water.  Policies and practices for mitigating or adapting to climate change impacts water resources, and the way we manage water in turn affects the climate.

The quandary of climate variability and change needs to be addressed as a cross-cutting issue that integrates land degradation, migration and demographic pressure, uncontrolled urbanization, poverty, loss of knowledge, and governance.  The challenge is then to get decision-makers inside and outside of the water sector to adopt appropriate measures to reduce the negative pressures on water and increase the positive pressures.