Integrated resource use management practices for better urban water management through the application of SES lens

The idea of integrated water resource management (IWRM) for comprehensive and sustainable management of river and lake basins has been present in academia and policy-making for over half a century. Despite its presence in academia and policy-making for some time, IWRM has seen some major bottlenecks, such as a lack of comprehensive and holistic viewpoints and their applications to real ecosystems for better water resource management. This skewness in the application of management of water resources at an ‘integrated’ level is further observed in urban areas. Social-ecological systems (SES) on the other hand, are systems where humans are taken as part of nature, including in urban areas. SES are complex, adaptive systems and are maintained by ecosystem structure, processes, functions, and feedback from the human and natural systems. Hence, this chapter focuses on the nature of integrated planning in urban water ecosystems by exploring the contact points of IWRM with SES. The chapter exemplifies this contact point by citing water resource management practices by traditional and local resource use systems in or near urban areas. It also explores the possible pathways (i.e., feedback in social-ecological systems) for better urban water management by considering humans and water as an integrator for the management of urban water ecosystems.