Integrated water resources management stumbling blocks: Prioritization for better implementation under Ethiopian context

Implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), as internationally recog-nized, is not straightforward. IWRM is tailored to bring about three outcomes: Economic effi-ciency, Social equity, and Environmental and Ecological sustainability. Thus, each country faces a unique challenge in implementing IWRM. Literature reports several stumbling blocks (SBs) that hinder IWRM implementation in Ethiopia. The SBs can be categorized as Water Resources: Availability, Development, Use, and Governance-Related SBs. The spatiotemporal impacts of stumbling blocks were evaluated based on the contribution of each SB to the three outcomes. Prioritizing SBs based on their spatiotemporal contribution to hindering IWRM implementation is essential for environmental and economic reasons to simultaneously solve all SBs. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was used to prioritize the SBs. The results indicate food insecurity in the water use category is the highest-ranked SB, whereas market inaccessibility is the least. Poverty and less attention to water infrastructure from water resources development are the second-ranked SBs to hinder IWRM implementation. This research has shown prioritization of SBs is possible using FAHP, and resolving these SBs in their stated priority will make IWRM imple-mentation in the Ethiopian context much better. The research also shows IWRM implementation in Ethiopia requires careful consideration of the SBs, for which the FAHP approach is reliable.