Understanding inter-relationships
Successful IWRM requires the integration of environmental, social and economic factors; but in any specific situation the relationships between biophysical and socio-economic systems are even less well understood than the biophysical alone. Consequently, the social implications of management decisions are often impossible to predict.

Market-failure
Despite the wide-spread recognition that water should be treated as an economic good, in many places water is provided to the agricultural sector at very subsidised rates.

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Entrenched agricultural practices
Very often farmers, like other groups, are unwilling to change practices, if they believe that others will simply continue doing what they have always done.