International Journal of Water Resources Development

The circular economy and its principles are increasingly embraced in interventions aiming at improving water management. At first glance, this association seems logical as the word “circular” echoes the notion of the water cycle. However, bringing them together is not so straightforward. Water resources and the sustainability of their management need to be analysed at the scale of territories. At this scale, water flows and interactions are complex and multi-faceted, and do not fit neatly with the idea of a cycle. To take but one example: water users are often connected to each other in very linear ways, along rivers or irrigation canals, with upstream-downstream interdependencies.

Human interventions in water management, including those justified by the need to preserve, optimize, or reuse water resources and made in the name of the circular economy, modify the flows, stocks, paths and temporalities of water. For instance, measures such as the introduction of drip irrigation, changes in agricultural practices to reduce transpiration or infiltration, or modifications in water management rules in irrigation systems are tantamount to reallocation of water, with winners and losers; they can also have rebound effects leading to overall increased water consumption rather than water savings. Finally, measures implemented in the name of efficiency and water resource optimization can also have undesirable effects on water and environmental quality. These often-unintended effects invite us to unpack the application of the circular economy’s epistemological framework to the water sector.

In this special issue, we invite multi-disciplinary contributions that will tackle how the particularities of water and the complexity of water flows at the scale of territories challenge, impede or support the implementation of the circular economy principles for sustainable water management. We welcome papers that address these issues from a conceptual vantage point but also on the basis of empirical case studies dealing with topic such as, but not limited to: changes in agricultural practices, water reuse, groundwater management, water governance, etc.

Contributions should be no more than 8000 words long, including Tables, Figures and References. Please select the Special Issue title 'Navigating the principles of the circular economy in water resources management' on submission.

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