A recently launched international initiative on "Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy" (HELP) aims at a science-based approach to integrated catchment management, and in particular to facilitating the dialogue needed between scientists, stakeholders and policy makers. The ultimate challenge of a sustainability-oriented environmental management is to find the proper balance between humans and the impacts that their activities cause to ecosystems. This makes the catchment a useful landscape unit for an integrated approach where a balancing between humans and nature can be carried out. The catchment can be seen as containing two mosaics, one of human water-related activities and the other of water-dependent ecosystems, terrestrial as well as aquatic. These two mosaics are internally linked by water flows but partly incompatible. Therefore, a management task is to orchestrate the catchment for compatibility, which will demand intentional trade-offs. Past water management policy has often been based on outdated knowledge and technology, for instance by a 'paradigm lock' between scientists and stakeholders, isolating them from each other: scientists by the lack of proven utility of their findings, and stakeholders by legal and professional precedence and disaggregated institutions. The HELP initiative encourages the water policy, water resources management and scientific communities to work together within a field-oriented context so that science may be closely integrated with policy and management needs.

An overview of the integrated water resources management (IWRM) process is provided as well as an outline of the Hydrology, Environment, Life, and Policy (HELP) programme's actions over the next 5 years as a follow-up to the recommendations of the Kalmar Symposium of 2002. Most of HELP's implementation, however, will be within the HELP basins themselves, which is consistent with the 'bottom-up' approach of the programme. HELP's niche in contributing to the IWPM process is by defining knowledge gaps and acting via a global network of basins. Through the involvement and support of stakeholders, longer-term visionary values of research with subsequent benefits to society may be more quickly realized.

The aim of the Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) project is to strengthen the role and inputs of the scientific community in the integrated catchment management process. Water resources management in the 21st century requires a radical reorientation and an effective dialogue between decision-makers, stakeholders and the scientific water community. This paper offers a skeleton worldview as a starting point for that dialogue by bringing together key issues as identified by water resource experts from different disciplines. Experiences from all over the world demonstrate the need for multistakeholder advocacy and the importance of compromise-building mechanisms. Water law defines the rules of the game and provides a necessary framework for policy and its execution. However, there must be adequate social acceptance and active compliance, otherwise the formal rules and administrative regulation will not be perceived as legitimate and ultimately could prove ineffective. The challenge now is to create management systems where the formal decision-makers interact with relevant members of the scientific community, users and other stakeholders for a coordinated approach that successfully orchestrates water uses towards internal compatibility. Integrated water resources management is essential for securing a proper overview of all the activities that depend on the same resource -the precipitation over the basin- and which are internally linked by the mobility of water from the water divide to the river mouth.

Following a definition of integrated water resources management (TWRM) and who the various stakeholders are in IWRM, the roles and -views of three different stakeholders are discussed from a South African perspective. The role of national policy-maker is that of enabling/facilitating IWRM in light of principles and provisions enshrined in South Africa's National Water Act of 1998. Commercial agriculture is selected as one sector markedly affected by new legislation related to IWRM. Positives of the legislation are first outlined, but perceived 'threats' by the commercial agriculture sector of legislation then come under the spotlight. These are categorized into questions on water allocation, water conservation and water management. The role of the scientist, more specifically the hydrologist, in enabling/facilitating IWRM is viewed from perspectives of being the 'objective broker' between stakeholders with their own agendas, to information provider, of model developer, of pre-empting questions on IWRM, as communicator and as a capacity builder.

The goal of the Motueka Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) Programme is to develop integrated, multidisciplinary research approaches to address water resource management issues defined by strong stakeholder consultation. This programme, initiated in 2000, is focused on the Motueka River catchment and Tasman Bay. The Motueka catchment is sparsely populated, but is a heavily used and highly productive landscape at the top of South Island, New Zealand. Important land uses include commercial forestry, irrigated berry and pip fruit production, dry land pasturing (sheep), and, increasingly, irrigated dairy farming. Large portions of the headwater areas are recreational park and conservation lands. The Motueka River itself is internationally known as a trout fishery and reaches of the river are an important habitat for native and threatened Galaxiid fish. Tasman Bay, which receives 65% of its freshwater inflow from the Motueka River, is a commercially important scallop and mussel fishery, contains a nationally important marine sanctuary, and is widely used as a recreational resource. Currently, water quality in the area is generally high, although it is threatened by some land uses. Water quantity has been a persistent concern in this seasonally dry region of New Zealand and is the subject of a Water Conservation Order that has focussed attention on the need for a stakeholder-driven, integrated approach to water resources management. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the authors' early experiences, as scientists and managers, in developing an integrated biophysical and social research programme to support sustainable water resource management in the Motueka catch- ment. However, the framework for dialogue and action that the authors have developed is one that is relevant to other areas of New Zealand and beyond. The long-term goals of the ICM programme are consistent with those of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization/Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) programme and may be of use to other communities, especially in areas where protection of existing values in a productive landscape is the key issue, as opposed to restoration of degrades values in a damaged landscape.

The Em river watershed in south-east Sweden is an example of involving local organizations and people in river basin management that implements practically integrated water resources management and the philosophy underlying the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/Swedish International Hydrological Programme (IHP) Hydrology, Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) programme. The Em River Stakeholder Association has applied a bottom-up perspective. Stakeholders have been participating in several river basin projects over several years. Stakeholder participation was of special importance when working with issues of local importance, such as water economizing, fish migration, storm-water characterization and nutrient reduction. Eight task groups have carried out projects "thin different fields of expertise. The river basin cooperation started as a project in 1992. In 2004, the permanent Em River Union will be formed to work towards sustainable development integrated water management, good ecological conditions and economic growth in the Em River basin.

Successful binational planning and management of water resources is a complex process dependent on informed decision-making across diverse economic, social and political sectors. Additional technical and scientific information is often required as a part of this process. A critical factor in this process is how effectively social and physical scientists can help build collaboration and trust among stakeholders, water and land managers, and policy-makers. Within the international San Pedro River Basin, disparities between Mexico and the USA regarding economic development and political orientation, combined with a highly variable and complex physical setting, suggest that the successful engagement of scientists with communities and stakeholders will be essential for addressing challenges in water management. Based upon concepts associated with collective action theory, adaptive management and conflict resolution, the present paper proposes a process for fostering collaborative binational water management in basins such as the San Pedro that span international borders.

Across the European Union, the Water Framework Directive is a major driver for change in river basin management. However, its focus on integrated management and, in particular, on ecological quality raises major scientific and technical questions. In the UK, the focus of experimental hydrology has been on the uplands, and at small catchment scale (< 10 km²), whereas major management pressures lie in the lowlands, and for catchment management units of about 300-400 km². Particular problems arise for permeable lowland catchments: the scientific understanding of the major UK aquifers (the Chalk and the Triassic Sandstone) is poor, and tools for the integrated modelling of surface water-groundwater interactions are limited. In response to these factors, the LOwland CAtchment Research programme (LOCAR) was conceived. A major objective of the programme is to develop new interdisciplinary science and improved modelling tools to meet the challenges of integrated catchment management. The paper describes the research programme and addresses the issues raised in designing and implementing a major interdisciplinary research initiative.

The ecologically unique forest ecosystems of the Luquillo Mountains in Eastern Puerto Rico and the scenic value of its forests, rivers and surrounding beaches have promoted population growth, tourism and light industry, thus increasing regional water demands. In light of further increases in future water demand, integrated water resources management (IWRM) initiatives are rapidly evolving in this area. In an effort to seek international collaboration and information exchange on IWRM, the Luquillo Mountains joined the Hydrology for the Environment, Life, and Policy (HELP) Programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/International Hydrological Programme (IHP) in 1999. This paper was prepared to document existing IWRM efforts and to promote internal discussion for further IWRM development in the region.

The potential of models to assist in stakeholder dialogues is assessed regarding options for the reduction of riverine nutrient loads in a 357-km² river basin in south central Sweden. Scenarios of remedies based on stakeholders' suggestions were used to stimulate discussions in a panel incorporating farmers, municipality staff, politicians and technical advisers. The farmers perceived the model-derived discussion material as valuable, although only average conditions at a generic farm were simulated. The panellists demonstrated caution when using regionalized information, but did not request quantitative uncertainty estimates. There was a desire to have phosphorus included in the model-derived discussion material and to include the impacts of other environmental goals than 'no eutrophication'. The inclusion of different stakeholder groups in the panel sessions was acknowledged as a way to establish a shared perception of the existing environmental status of the basin and to define the pros and cons of various remedies. This was seen by the panellists as a way to facilitate local implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Use of model-stimulated local stakeholder panels is also a way to ensure that involved stakeholders perceive local environmental goals as realistic and acceptable. However, to establish river-basin stakeholder dialogues as part of the nation-wide implementation of the WFD, it will be necessary to develop a model approach that can be used by local advisers. Perhaps the most critical factor is the moderators' ability to provide an atmosphere of mutual respect between all those involved in contrast to performing one-way lectures to the participants.