Towards Integrated Regional Models of Transboundary River Basins in Southeast Asia: Lessons Launched from Water and Watersheds

Abstract

One of the most salient of contemporary issues in Global Change is the dynamics of water movement across large river basins to the sea. Understanding the subtle relations between the forcing provided by seasonal and interannual variability in climate expressed across an evolving landscape provides important insight into the processes controlling the intrinsic dynamics of meso-scale river basins, while providing important information for basin managers. Increases in resource demand rise directly with increases in population and the generation of wealth. Significant medium to longterm climate change and altered frequency and severity of extreme events will likely complicate the priority setting and decision-making processes. Conflicts arising from regional inequities in access to and capture of water will be exacerbated in the years ahead, with a growing human population and with the stresses that global changes will impose on water quality and availability. A robust ability to examine simultaneously such a complex suite of forces and events is key in adaptations for the future. In our original Water and Watersheds proposal of 1995, “Toward an Integrated Regional Model of River Basins of the Pacific Rim,” we stated that “our ultimate goal is to combine basic research with assessment modeling in order to better understand, predict and constrain the effects of an altering landscape on Earth system health.” To address these issues, we proposed “to conduct a multi-national, multi-disciplinary, large-scale investigation into the processes that control and alter the health and activity of river systems within the Pacific Rim.” We were awarded essentially a pilot grant, which allowed us to begin developing a longer-term work plan (with funding from national and international sources), and ultimately a vision of how to determine what information is necessary for not only the basic science of large river basins, but how to bring that knowledge to bear on capacity development and decision makers in the developing world. As described below, implicit in our approach was that: