ABSTRACT
A variety of anthropogenic processes and factors, including demographic, social, economic, technological, and climatic change, combine to exert pressure on freshwater resources and the ecosystems that sustain them (MEA 2005 ; WWAP 2012 ). These underlying drivers of change both arise from and impinge upon the various sectors in different ways. Growing recognition of the centrality of water to all human activity, and the complexity of interacting drivers of change, which often escape the reach of local or national governing institutions, has led increasingly to calls for integrated management and multilevel governance of water resources (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2008 ; WWAP 2012 ).
