Water is considered the most volatile issue between countries that share resources and countries must reconcile their interest with climate change and other altering factors. They should envisage the flexibility and adaptive capacity of the population to effectively cope with the effects of climate change and other factors and should manage water resources in a better manner. One way that water can be conserved in agriculture is to adopt drip farming as invented and popularized by Israel. This method reduces the consumption of water to a fraction of what is used in traditional methods with much better production results.
Countries must avail cutting-edge technological innovations to manage water resources more effectively. Every country concentrates on trying to locate new sources of potable water when they should be concentrating on more efficient methods of conserving and using water resources for maximum benefits. Climate change policies should be integrated into national, regional and international development policies. Rising sea levels will intensify and aggravate saltwater infringement into many rivers and more intense storm rushes will flood low-lying coastal territories which will invariably alter the amount of distribution of water assets and riparian states might suffer both extremes i.e. acute shortage of water during the dry season and flooding during the rainy seasons.
Too much or too little snowfall will also affect water resources in different ways. No matter what happens the production of food will be adversely affected which damage public health and put at risk living conditions which will tear apart the social fiber and well-being of communities. To avert such momentous water crises, countries must start integrating groundwater and surface water resources. Both resources are accorded differing treatments and priorities, studies and managed separately usually by different scientists and environmentalists. They consider rivers, lakes and surface water as sources that are renewed naturally in the climatic cycle. Groundwater is considered as a non-renewable source, which when exhausted cannot be renewed because resources are restricted to outdated underground storage tanks. However, both sources overlap limits because withdrawals made from one source will invariably affect the other source and decimate the supply of water.
A good example of this effect can be taken from the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system between India and Bangladesh to make a case that common groundwater and surface water should be managed by considering all relevant factors if they are to be shared equitably by both countries. In the same manner, where water requirements can be met by using both surface and groundwater, policies must be formulated that will combine the handling of both resources because both sources are available for riparian utility. If both resources are managed individually it will result in the mismanagement of both water resources.
