This course examines the world’s water issues through the lens of human security and development and water security to improve human security. In this course our question is: What would sustainable water resources governance and management look like if the primary aim was security of people? As a professionally-oriented course, we are interested in (i) policy options; (ii) practical interventions; and (iii) best practices. Given the particular issue at hand, in relation to many actors, forces and factors, what would a water manager do to improve water security and water and security?

Water is not an ordinary good – it is finite and ever-renewable; it is a stock that can be depleted and a flow that runs away (only to return in a different form at a different place and time); it is indispensable for life and thus necessary for us all, but it can be turned into a commodity or used as an input in industrial production; and it comes in different colours i.e. blue, green, grey, brown, black – and forms i.e. solid, liquid, gas/vapour; it also exists virtually, in everything we eat and in many goods that we make. Water, put simply, makes the human world go around. It is often said that we face a world water crisis and that this crisis is largely of our own making.