Scarce Resource Politics in the Brahmaputra River Basin

<p>Transboundary water problems are complex systems, which involve interdependence and interconnectedness between elements, uncertainty and feedbacks between processes, and emergence and adaptation through evolution of the systems. There is nearly no way to formulate transboundary water problems in an equation fitting-one-size-for-all. As nature-human coupled systems, transboundary water problems should consider actual stakeholders and parties in context-specific situations as well as natural conditions.</p><p>News media are good recorders for us to have an insight into the transboundary water problems down-to-earth. Local news media are the first-hand and direct reflections of societal values among the riparian countries and stakeholders, and are documentaries of what is going on in transboundary river basins. International news media are also good sources to know about how people in the world perceive transboundary river issues from the perspectives as “outsiders”. Therefore, text analysis of news articles concerning conflict and cooperation on transboundary river basins can tell us a whole story about the past history and on-going “real” life in the basins.</p><p>To uncover the patterns and dynamics of conflictive and cooperative events on a global scale, people usually read news articles, extract information manually in the past, which is tedious and time-commanding. In the era of big data, we collect large news media datasets automatically, and employ machine learning techniques to do data mining out of those news media data. The aim of our research is to minimize manual labor in searching, filtering, reading and understanding the related news media articles by computer, and to provide potent tools for researchers to retrieve useful information  in the related areas. To validate our methodology, we look Mekong River Basin and Brahmaputra River Basin as case studies into details. To apply our methodology in a global scale, we intend to draw a world map with a timeline to show how water conflict, and cooperation occurs, grows, and transforms. By capturing characteristics of the life cycles of water conflict and cooperation, we aim to throw light upon water management in transboundary river basins, provide some hints for water resources decision-makers, and enhance global water security.</p>

The chapter introduces the book that highlights various challenges and opportunities for water management and cooperation in South Asia. Taking into consideration the increasing urbanization and development in the region and related pressure on water resources, the various chapters investigate water conflictual and cooperative attitudes and gestures between countries and regions, analyse management trade-offs between nature, agriculture and urban uses, and look into water sustainable management and related policies. The chapter highlights the increasing importance of South Asia, alerts for the constraining impacts of water scarcity, and indicates challenges for improved sustainable water management. The chapter concludes with synopses of each part of the book and of the chapters that compose them.

Rapid increases in demand for food and energy as a result of population growth and economic development is placing ever increasing demands on limited water resources in South Asia, and climate change is expected further complicate water resource management. In spite of important reductions in poverty levels in recent decades the region is still home to a very large number of poor whose quality of life is directly affected by the availability and quality of water and water services. A significant fraction of the water resources of the region and a significant fraction of the poor are associated with major Himalayan transboundary rivers, and given growing water demand it is likely that the already significant sensitivity around water cooperation amongst co-riparians will increase. Understanding the risks and opportunities for transboundary cooperation in the river systems in South Asia is thus important for guiding sustainable transboundary basin management in the region. This study refines a novel method for a rapid assessment of these cooperation risks and opportunities and applies it to the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus river basins to test its utility. The method employs a fuzzy synthetic evaluation technique that combines fuzzy logic and an analytical hierarchy process to assess cooperation risk and opportunity in terms of a Risk-Opportunity Index (ROI). The ROI is a function of four composite development variables and three hegemony variables that indicate the various pressures on the basin water resource and the different control strategies riparians could adopt given existing power asymmetries. In the absence of a clear rationale for differential weighting, equal weights were assigned to all seven variables for this application. A “defuzzification” scoring method is used to define compromising, risk-averse and risk-taking variants of ROI for riparian pairs within each basin. Overall, the results for the compromising ROI suggest that the opportunities for bilateral cooperation are highest (and risks the lowest) in the Brahmaputra Basin and the opportunities are lowest (and the risks highest) in the Indus Basin. This overall assessment is consistent with current common perception. Within the basins the compromising ROI values suggest a few instances of high risk and/or low opportunity, as well as an approximately equal number of instances of medium risk/opportunity and low risk/high opportunity. The study demonstrates that the fuzzy synthetic evaluation technique has utility for rapidly identifying potential opportunities for riparian cooperation in transboundary basins, in order to guide dialogue processes and more detailed analyzes. The study also however, reveals some aspects of the method where further refinement would likely yield more reliable assessments of cooperation risks and opportunities. Specifically, further refinements could consider the relative geographic position of co-riparians within a basin, and the relative resource access of different riparians. The method only considers bilateral riparian interactions and not more complex multi-lateral interactions. The results of study may contribute to various ongoing regional and basin dialogues on water cooperation in South Asia.

Environmental Information in European Transboundary Water Management aims to examine the role of information in transboundary river basin and water management, and the way it is used (or not) in policy and decision and decision-making within the wider European area. While having forward-looking perspective justified by the ongoing implementation of the EU water Framework Directive among EU Member States and Candidates Countries, many of the chapters draw on the experiences gained from the past and existing transboundary river basin co-operation experiences. Chapters are organised according to a framework that shows the sharing of water resources to be based upon a foundation of integrated water resources management, supported by three pillars: Politics - concerned with the enabling of sharing water resources, including the recognition of differences in riparian interests and international collaboration. Technical cooperation - concerned with concrete co-operation including exchange of information; tools and techniques to produce, use and disseminate information; joint research programmes; joint river basin plans; and joint ventures i.e. jointly performed water management actions. Legal-institutional - dealing with institutions and legal instruments that support the vision of fair and equitable sharing of international water resources; this pillar finds its basis in internationally laid down principles of cross border co-operation. Environmental Information in European Transboundary Water Management will appeal to professionals involved in the various aspects of transboundary river basin co-operation, both on strategic and operational levels, but also to the academic community concerned with the study of transboundary river basin or water management. It will also be an important source for graduate students in (transboundary) river basin management. ISBN: 9781843390381 (Print) ISBN: 9781780402666 (eBook)

Varikoden, H.; Roja, C.; Revadekar, J.V., and Milind, M., 2020. Rainfall variation in major river basins in India and the association with the Indo-Pacific Oceans. In: Sheela Nair, L.; Prakash, T.N.; Padmalal, D., and Kumar Seelam, J. (eds.), Oceanic and Coastal Processes of the Indian Seas. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 89, pp. 1-6. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The summer monsoon rainfall is the major water source for most parts of India and people depend on this water source for their livelihood. The rainfall during this season is highly variable over space and time. The rainfall during the southwest monsoon period is the main source of flow discharge in most of the rivers in India. In the present study, we made an attempt to explore the variability and trends in rainfall over the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Godavari and Krishna river basins. Northern river basins show a negative trend indicating the decrease of rainfall and increasing trends are observed in peninsular river basins. The Brahmaputra river basin shows a significant decreasing trend (-0.16 mm day-1 decade-1). Moreover, the variability in multi-time scale is also different for different basins. Among all the river basins considered in the study, the Brahmaputra river basin registered high average rainfall (15.11 mm day-1 with a standard deviation of 2.23 mm day-1) and the Krishna river basin the least (3.57 mm day-1 with a standard deviation of 0.87 mm day-1). Further, the large scale teleconnection of the rainfall with individual river basins has also been assessed. The Ganga river basin is one of the largest river basins and this region is highly influenced by the Arabian Sea and the west Pacific Ocean (Nino 3.4 region). However, the Brahmaputra basin does not show much connection with Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) over the west Pacific Ocean, the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal. The rainfall in the Godavari and Krishna river basins have more influence on SSTs over the central Pacific Ocean.

The Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers are the three main rivers contributing to the formation the GBM (Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna) delta system. The delta system undergoes several environmental challenges both natural and manmade. A significant portion of population from different nations is directly and indirectly dependent on these three rivers for their sustenance. As transboundary rivers, they suffer a lack of transnational cooperation in terms of river protection and sustainable management. This review article analyses the environmental challenges in the GBM delta system to better understand the critical issues related to sustainable delta management. It also focuses on the transboundary issues and their solutions through cooperation, knowledge sharing and other joint activities between nations. The Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers suffer from different forms of pollution. Significant sources include domestic, industrial and agricultural affluents along with direct defecation, bathing, washing, solid waste dumping and throwing of ritualistic burnt dead bodies into river water. The level of pollution creates havoc in aquatic ecosystem and leaves the water unusable for humans as well. The significant growth of population in these regions has modified the land cover of the GBM delta system. The rise in agricultural land, dams and other hydraulic structures has modified the erosion and sedimentation dynamics of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers. As a result, the cases of riverbank erosion, riverbed siltation and river course shifting are also rising. The rivers also struggle with the various types of natural disasters like cyclones, storm surges, floods, droughts, salinity intrusions, coastal erosions and tidal bores. There is also a lack of understanding and cooperation between countries when it comes to sustainable delta management. To top it off, other issues like extreme poverty, lack of education, dependency on nature-based agricultural practices have also clouded the long-term development of the delta system and its people. The above-mentioned challenges require holistic and integrated action plans among respective nations. This can be achieved through effective policy dialogues, transnational protection and conservation plans, information sharing, co-learning, joint research programs, transstate accountability and technological advancements which can be ensured by each of the participating nations. The Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) delta system extends for more than hundreds of kilometres along the Bay of Bengal coastline. The Ganges and Brahmaputra River drains roughly around 75% of the Himalayan mountain range. These two rivers carry around 1.1 GT/yr of sediment and dump on the Bengal Basin. This amount is equal to around 6–8% of the total sediment input dumped on the oceans globally. These rivers are extensively affected by different types of pollutions, erratic flood intensities and altering tidal characteristics. They also suffer from river stage fluctuations in the downstream riparian regions due to the construction and operation of hydraulic structures in the upstream regions. This study provides a critical analysis of the present issues and challenges regarding the active rivers of the GBM delta system and recommends a holistic and sustainable management plan for the protection and conservation of the rivers by analysing previously published research works and secondary datasets. The Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna river basins experience various point and non-point pollutions. The downstream regions face a higher rate of pollution than the upstream ones. As the rivers approach the delta mouth, land use patterns and land covers change due to increased rate of urbanization, industrialization, agricultural practices and climate change effects. Their flow is also being controlled by several upstream hydraulic structures like dams, barrages and reservoirs. Consequently, the river basins face many natural and anthropogenic disasters. The combined effect of these issues elevates the vulnerability of the downstream delta mouth population and destabilizes their socio-economic conditions. These crises can be solved through transnational cooperation, regional capacity building and sharing of information between upstream and downstream riparian countries. Inclusive and flexible strategies with appropriate policy dialogue may lead to amendments of current agreements which may eventually create a sustainable platform to overcome the environmental challenges of the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta system.KeywordsGBM deltaGanges RiverBrahmaputra RiverMeghna RiverPollutionLand useDisasterClimate changeTransboundary riverCooperationManagement

Study regionThe Brahmaputra River Basin. Study focusThe Brahmaputra River Basin (BRB) is the most environmentally fragile and politically unstable transboundary river basin in South Asia. Therefore, incorporating the environmental sector into water-energy-food system analysis is necessary to better serve water resource management in the BRB. Integrated water resources system analysis can provide more perspectives for alleviating political tension and promoting cooperation in the basin. This study proposes a modeling framework to explore the water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus and analyze transboundary cooperation opportunities in the BRB. Employing the framework, we attempt to answer three questions: (1) how can we understand the relationships between various sectors and coordinate their water demands? (2) How do these relationships influence riparian countries’ decisions? (3) What measures can promote the sustainable development of the BRB under climate change and water infrastructure development? New hydrological insights for the regionThe results show that the trade-off curve between economic benefits and environmental costs has declining marginal value in the BRB. When environmental constraints are raised, countries are more inclined to cooperate to obtain more economic benefits. Full cooperation in the BRB increases the economic benefits and prompts riparian countries to take a greener road among the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP126). Water resource project construction can improve the utility of water resources in a country, thus enhancing its discourse power on benefit reallocation.

The management of transboundary water resources is generally known for its complexity and large number of interconnected social, environmental, economic, and political aspects. The increasing threat of the impact of climate change and water scarcity, combined with the ongoing ‘dam racing’ in the Brahmaputra River Basin, have the potential to sharpen territorial and resource feuds, and trigger greater regional instability. Even though China and India have already signed several bilateral cooperation agreements, the existing institutional arrangements are still weak or even inadequate. Therefore, a new water management regime with strong but flexible norms accepted by all actors must be established. Such transboundary regime should be compatible with the principles of adaptive water management in order to reduce uncertainties or surprises, and improve information sharing, while paying special attention to social and cultural uniqueness of the regions involved. This paper examines the social and environmental implications of China’s and India’s ongoing natural resource quest. It analyses the impact of ongoing dam building activities on the livelihood of downstream riverdependent population and, in particular, addresses whether and how water can become a source of international cooperation and shared prosperity rather than a source of conflict. It argues that the implementation of an effective water management regime that focusses on an adaptive, holistic and mutually beneficial approach is the imperative for future existence and coexistence within the Brahmaputra basin, and should play a key role in preventing and combating the contemporary challenges such as climate change, water scarcity, a damaged ecosystem, and displaced peoples.

Drought is a recurring natural disaster, which significantly affects the economy and environment of diverse geographical area worldwide. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a new technique that enables comprehensive identification and monitoring of drought over a large spatial extent. In this study, a new drought index called Combined Terrestrial Evapotranspiration Index (CTEI) is developed by using a combination of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data and meteorological parameters, i.e. precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) over the Indus, Ganga, and the Brahmaputra (IGB) river basins. Further, the results of CTEI are compared with pre-existing drought indices, which highlighted good correlation with GRACE Groundwater Drought Index (GGDI) (ρ = 0.88), Water storage deficit index (WSDI) (ρ = 0.96), Combined Climatologic Deviation Index (CCDI) (ρ = 0.97) and Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) (ρ = 0.49). It also compared with In-situ Groundwater Drought Index (IGDI) derived by groundwater observation wells. The mean annual CTEI exhibited a strong correlation with IGDI (0.49 to 0.77) and climatic parameters (P, PET, and land surface temperature). Outcomes illustrated a significant potential of CTEI index and extended the utility of GRACE derived Terrestrial Water Storage observations for drought characterization as well as quantification of its severity.

This study asks the question of whether GCMs are ready to be operationalized for streamflow forecasting in South Asian river basins, and if so, at what temporal scales and for which water management decisions are they likely to be relevant? The authors focused on the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna basins for which there is a gridded hydrologic model calibrated for the 2002–10 period. The North American Multimodel Ensemble (NMME) suite of eight GCM hindcasts was applied to generate precipitation forecasts for each month of the 1982–2012 (30 year) period at up to 6 months of lead time, which were then downscaled according to the bias-corrected statistical downscaling (BCSD) procedure to daily time steps. A global retrospective forcing dataset was used for this downscaling procedure. The study clearly revealed that a regionally consistent forcing for BCSD, which is currently unavailable for the region, is one of the primary conditions to realize reasonable skill in streamflow forecasting. In terms of relative RMSE (normalized by reference flow obtained from the global retrospective forcings used in downscaling), streamflow forecast uncertainty (RMSE) was found to be 38%–50% at monthly scale and 22%–35% at seasonal (3 monthly) scale. The Ganges River (regulated) experienced higher uncertainty than the Brahmaputra River (unregulated). In terms of anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC), the streamflow forecasting at seasonal (3 monthly) scale was found to have less uncertainty (>0.3) than at monthly scale (<0.25). The forecast skill in the Brahmaputra basin showed more improvement when the time horizon was aggregated from monthly to seasonal than the Ganges basin. Finally, the skill assessment for the individual seasons revealed that the flow forecasting using NMME data had less uncertainty during monsoon season (July–September) in the Brahmaputra basin and in postmonsoon season (October–December) in the Ganges basin. Overall, the study indicated that GCMs can have value for management decisions only at seasonal or annual water balance applications at best if appropriate historical forcings are used in downscaling. The take-home message of this study is that GCMs are not yet ready for prime-time operationalization for a wide variety of multiscale water management decisions for the Ganges and Brahmaputra River basins.

Runoff variations and governing factors in transboundary basins through multisource data and water budget during 2003–2021

The record 2017 flood in South Asia: State of prediction and performance of a data-driven requisitely simple forecast model

Rising agricultural water scarcity in China is driven by expansion of irrigated cropland in water scarce regions

Public management in South Asia has been influenced by the colonial past which has resulted in the domination of administrative systems by the bureaucrats. Bureaucracies remained firmly entrenched as powerful groups and performed both administrative and political functions. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka represent cases with similar backgrounds which opted for different political and economic systems after achieving independence. Consequently, a number of issues have emerged in public management in South Asia. These include debureaucratization of the policy process, complex relationship between specialists and generalists, integration of administrative structures, reconciliation of merit and equity, choice between professional and political patronage, revitalization of management, bridging the ever widening gap between the citizens and administrators, and the establishment of a sound ethical base of administration. The success of South Asian governments in dealing with these issues will determine, to a considerable extent, the dimensions and directions of change. While some of the issues will have to be addressed in the natural course of development, others will require a substantial degree of commitment from the governments as well as the societies.

This thesis set out to develop methodologies that promote cooperation, peace and development instead of conflict and violence in transboundary water resources management. In particular, its objectives were the following: o To examine and understand the complexity of water systems and water conflict management o To investigate factors affecting resilience of water treaties o To develop methods for equitable water allocation in transboundary river basins using bankruptcy theory o To develop a risk-based Multi Attribute Decision Making method (RB-MADM) to select, rank and/or classify alternatives among a set of available options in negotiation and decision making processes over shared natural resources o To demonstrate the applicability of the developed methods in practice through some real cases: the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers and the Caspian Sea. This thesis starts with an in-depth discussion of the complexity of transboundary water systems and the nexus between resource scarcity and resource conflict. Water systems are complex coupled human-natural systems. This complexity can be exacerbated when water is shared between two or more riparian countries. Shared water resources can be a source of both conflict and cooperation among riparian countries. Conflict resolution in a complex system is also a complex task that cannot be managed by means of scientific methods or modelling approaches only. This thesis focuses on conflict resolution in transboundary river basins. Rather than looking at the issues just from a technical point of view, the research endeavours to recognize the complexity in conflict resolution in transboundary river basins. The nexus between resource scarcity and resource conflict is analyzed in terms of several schools of thought, including the Neo-Malthusians, Cornucopians, and the Distributionists. Furthermore, the missing link between water scarcity, as a main issue in international water resources management, and water crisis and conflict is examined. The evidence suggests that water scarcity can be both a cause and the result of conflict. Water systems have been affected by various human and natural perturbations and changes, such as global environmental and climate changes that are at least partly humanly induced. These disturbances can potentially affect conflict and cooperation between riparian countries. Water treaties should be resilient to cope with these changes and disturbances. Chapter three raises questions concerning main factors affecting non-resilience of water treaties as well as some reasons increasing the difficulty of implementation of treaties. Additional insights into these factors can help to enhance their resilience and reduce the risk of conflict among riparian countries. Among several factors affecting hydropolitical relationships, water quantity is the perhaps most conflictive issue. The principle of “equitable and reasonable utilization” is the main normative principle referred to for allocating internationally shared water resources. Despite this, a serious limitation of international water laws and conventions is that they have not introduced a generally accepted allocation mechanism to achieve an equitable and reasonable water allocation. Therefore, equitable water allocation among riparian countries is one of the main critical issues in water conflict management. Using bankruptcy theory, as a form of cooperative game theory method, novel flexible allocation methods have been developed in chapters four and five. The proposed rules have been applied to the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, shared between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, to illustrate the application of the rule to a real conflictive allocation problem. The results reveal that the proposed approaches may facilitate negotiation and have a great potential to help solving conflict and dispute over river resources allocation problems in transboundary river basins. A risk-based Multi Attribute Decision Making method was developed to support consensus-based decision making over several allocation mechanisms. This method was applied to help establish the legal status of the Caspian Sea, which is shared among five states: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. To date, these nations have been unable to reach an allocation agreement. We apply a methodology to propose the most appropriate solution among a set of options under different risk attitudes of the states. The analyses show that the overall ranking of options varies even when the states slightly change their risk attitudes from pessimistic to fairly pessimistic.