Abstract/Summary

• A catchment or river basin refers to an area of land that is drained by a single river and its tributaries. Integral to the health of a catchment are elements such as soil, water, wildlife and vegetation, all of which form a life support ecosystem.
• Modern global catchment governance policy has turned to the theory of Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) in the last three decades. Such policy is soon to be introduced in Cambodia as a means to achieve sustainable water resources management at catchment level. This approach recognises the importance of cooperation between all stakeholders within a catchment, based on the perspective that a catchment is a relevant territorial space which cuts across pre-existing administrative boundaries containing different groups of users and governance systems (Batchelor 1999).
• Policies for the Water sector in Cambodia acknowledge, to some extent, the importance of cooperation among stakeholders. The Participatory Irrigation Management and Development (PIMD) policy, introduced in 1999, emphasises the need for participatory management, predominantly between irrigation water users and to a lesser extent, between different governance sectors (e.g. water, agriculture, forestry and fisheries). The new Water Law, which came into enforcement in 2007, also refers to the need for cooperation between government and non-government stakeholders across sectors to effectively implement Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).