| Abstract |
Most policy bodies involved with water management issues are facing new challenges: more evident climate change impacts, Covid-19, recession, wars, population movements, increased energy and resources demand. These challenges affect water resources management, as they impact several related sectors such as energy, fuels, industry, agriculture, international relations and trade, economy, resources, including water, human and natural capital. This situation creates an ambiguous context (deep uncertainty) that suggests reconsidering the traditional management approaches, and leaves limited space for management failures and delays. We discuss three research questions/areas of focus for the future: 1) Redefining multi-disciplinary science and innovative collaborations to analyze and solve complex problems; 2) Efficient communication and continuous engagement to create the culture for science-supported policies, and speed up the response of policy-makers to grasp and adopt research and technological advances; 3) Deciding under deep uncertainty. |
