Transboundary Water Resources Management Research Articles

The Amazon Basin in the Context of Shared Management of Transboundary Water Resources

The present study addresses the issue of shared management of transboundary water resources, using the Amazon river basin as a case study. To evaluate risks, two scenarios (current and future) were simulated using the methodology proposed by the Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme River Basins. The results obtained allowed the inference that the Amazon Basin, considering all indicators, is in the “moderate” category of risk within the current scenario. In turn, when only the “governance” indicator is considered, reflected through projected water politics tensions, the risk category for the basin becomes “high”, both in the current and future scenarios (2030 and 2050). In conclusion, it is recommended that states should establish clear priorities and rules for water resource monitoring, use and supervision.

Transboundary water management priorities in Central Asia countries – Tobol River case study in Kazakhstan

AbstractChanges in transboundary water resources management in Central Asia brought the river pollution issue even more up to date than runoff and water distribution problems. This survey demonstrates that the analysis of river flow dynamics. Their water consumption and pollution makes it possible to prioritize these aspects of water management.As in the case of the Tobol-Torgay basin in Kazakhstan it was shown that for this type of basins. anthropogenic pollution remains a priority factor in transboundary water management. The Tobol River a tributary of the Ob and the Irtysh rivers belongs to the Kara Sea basin and is situated in the territory of Kazakhstan and Russia. Tobol-Torgay River basin located within borders of Kostanay region of Kazakhstan covers the upper reaches of the Tobol River and its tributaries. It has been determined that the water quality of the rivers in the region is stable for the decade under study and its formation remains due to natural factors. The priority contaminants in the basin are heavy metals and organic matter introduced by anthropogenic sources.The idea of the article was to present the issues of cross-border water management, one of the largest in terms of area countries in the world (ranked 9th in the world in terms of area), Kazakhstan. In the scientific community involved in water management Kazakhstan is usually associated with a catchment area of two large bodies without the possibility of outflow – the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea.

Exploring the Potential Impact of Serious Games on Social Learning and Stakeholder Collaborations for Transboundary Watershed Management of the St. Lawrence River Basin

The meaningful participation of stakeholders in decision-making is now widely recognized as a crucial element of effective water resource management, particularly with regards to adapting to climate and environmental change. Social learning is increasingly being cited as an important component of engagement if meaningful participation is to be achieved. The exact definition of social learning is still a matter under debate, but is taken to be a process in which individuals experience a change in understanding that is brought about by social interaction. Social learning has been identified as particularly important in transboundary contexts, where it is necessary to reframe problems from a local to a basin-wide perspective. In this study, social learning is explored in the context of transboundary water resource management in the St. Lawrence River Basin. The overarching goal of this paper is to explore the potential role of serious games to improve social learning in the St. Lawrence River. To achieve this end, a two-pronged approach is followed: (1) Assessing whether social learning is currently occurring and identifying what the barriers to social learning are through interviews with the region’s water resource managers; (2) Undertaking a literature review to understand the mechanisms through which serious games enhance social learning to understand which barriers serious games can break down. Interview questions were designed to explore the relevance of social learning in the St. Lawrence River basin context, and to identify the practices currently employed that impact on social learning. While examples of social learning that is occurring have been identified, preliminary results suggest that these examples are exceptions rather than the rule, and that on the whole, social learning is not occurring to its full potential. The literature review of serious games offers an assessment of such collaborative mechanisms in terms of design principles, modes of play, and their potential impact on social learning for transboundary watershed management. Serious game simulations provide new opportunities for multidirectional collaborative processes by bringing diverse stakeholders to the table, providing more equal access to a virtual negotiation or learning space to develop and share knowledge, integrating different knowledge domains, and providing opportunities to test and analyze the outcomes of novel management solutions. This paper concludes with a discussion of how serious games can address specific barriers and weaknesses to social learning in the transboundary watershed context of the St. Lawrence River Basin.

Environmental challenges of trans-boundary water resources management: the case of Bangladesh

The political definition of ‘natural geography’ with regard to trans-boundary waters may pose challenges to their environmental importance. Availability and distribution of trans-boundary waters may thus give rise to dissatisfaction, disbelief and dispute among its stakeholders. The Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna (GBM) basins, shared between Bangladesh and India, as a whole, receive more water than necessary over the year, but the spatial and temporal distribution of water availability are very uneven. Focused on the trans-boundary water regime of the GBM basins, this paper discusses core issues related to environmental security by analyzing various environmental impacts due to water diversion and its significance at the national and regional levels between Bangladesh and India. Both countries have built dams and barrages on these rivers to satisfy their water needs without considering the ecological settings. Consequently, the dwindling supply of water in dry season has become one of the key contested issues between the two countries. Negotiations, however, for water sharing in this region are mostly based on anecdotal rather than scientific evidences. Both Bangladesh and India classify river flow data as secret and use the lack of mutually acceptable data as a tactic to promote their own national interests. Reviewing the environmental challenges, the paper opines for an ecosystem orientation of international norms and regimes flows for the GBM basins.

Water–energy–food nexus in a transboundary context: the Euphrates–Tigris river basin as a case study

The interlinkage between water, energy and food security and its transboundary relevance is becoming increasingly important. The paper analyses the evolution of transboundary water resources management in the Euphrates–Tigris basin with specific reference to interlinkages between water, food and energy policies at national and transboundary levels, and it explores how the policy shifts at the highest decision-making level have served to produce synergies for cooperation among the riparians or vice versa.

Interstate Water Compacts: Partnerships for Transboundary Water Resource Management

While there are both successes and challenges related to the use of interstate water compacts, in their most effective forms they allow states to take a comprehensive, holistic approach to water management. Successful compacts tend to encompass the natural hydrologic boundaries of the water basin. They are more likely to utilize a commission type governance structure with sufficient authority to carry out the mission and goals of the compacting agreement. Successful compacts are flexible and allow for future developments (including climate change) while being cognizant of the need to protect and enhance the environment. They are also sensitive to the needs and desires of various stakeholders, including federal, state, and local governments as well as non-governmental organizations. Water compacts also face a variety of challenges. They must answer to a wide and diverse constituent base, often with conflicting interests. Stronger states can and do attempt to “bully” other states, severely limiting or eliminating altogether the usefulness of the compact. Governance structures that fail to integrate the interests of all states into a single body simply make the compact into an arena where small scale water wars can be fought. To illustrate an area where interstate water compacts could make a significant contribution, this paper concludes with a case study highlighting South Carolina’s transboundary water issues with North Carolina and Georgia. Recommendations for South Carolina include beginning negotiations toward the development of federal-interstate compacts as well as considering action in the Supreme Court in the event that these negotiations fail.

Scale and Subnational Resource Management: Transnational Initiatives in the Salish Sea Region

AbstractTransboundary water resources are very challenging to manage, generating numerous unresolved management issues. North America possesses two different spatial contexts in which transboundary water resource management issues exist, the arid U.S.–Mexico border region and the humid U.S.–Canada border region. Past work on the U.S.–Mexico border has explored a range of institutional arrangements by which resources are managed, with a special focus on both existing and new institutions and how the locus of policy formulation may vary across scale. In this article, I explore water resource issues in the U.S.–Canadian transboundary context through a comparative examination of management frameworks in the westernmost section on the U.S.–Canada border. Specifically, I examine the Cascadia Corridor region within which the Salish Sea and smaller nested watersheds lie, exploring how concepts of devolution, regionalization, subnational participation, and spatial scale have unfolded in transboundary management efforts in the region.

Economics of trans-boundary water resources management

Economics of trans-boundary water resources management

Mechanism of Trans Boundary Water Resources Management for Central Asia Countries

Water resources are integral part of the natural resource potential of the country. Trans boundary water interests of the Republic of Kazakhstan are priority to ensure water security, where the key problem remains the continuing uncertainty of the status of trans Boundary Rivers. Urgency of the problem of trans Boundary Rivers’ water management is becoming increasingly important due to their revaluation. Kazakhstan, as a water-scarce state of the Central Asian region, needs to look for ways to improve its water balance, since the problem of water volume reducing, reflecting on economic indicators, on addressing protection of ecosystems, social guarantees of water supply, is connected to a greater extent with the inconsistency of border states’ interests, differences in the approaches and methods of trans boundary rivers’ water management. Thus, water resources are not only a component of the environment, but also the main component of the control mechanism, implementation of which will be available for long-term cross-border cooperation of states in order to converge the interests of the joint regulation of water use and consumption, development of their legal basis, its legislative consolidation, direct exposure corresponding to the level of technical and technological support.

Pathways for building capacity and ensuring effective transboundary water resources management in Africa: Revisiting the key issues, opportunities and challenges

The performance of most organizations and institutions set up to facilitate transboundary water resources management in Africa remains unsatisfactory and new frameworks are required to address this performance gap. Using the Nile and Senegal River Basins as case studies, this paper applies qualitative research methods to explore the transboundary river basin management terrain in Africa with a view to identifying and articulating some of the major issues, challenges and opportunities faced in building the capacity of the main actors and institutions in the sector. The paper establishes that the creation of basin management institutions as the assumed panacea to challenges evident in this sector has not delivered the desired results. Some of the institutions established for this purpose in Africa have remained functionally weak and ineffective. Thus, demand for capacity-building interventions in this landscape remains high. The paper concludes that comprehensive capacity-building interventions should seek to improve the competencies and skills of key actors in implementing the broad range of activities constituting integrated water resources management in transboundary basins. In-depth analysis of the fundamental capacity constraints and challenges that key players face in relation to key drivers for cooperation is the absolutely necessary ingredient.

Why Eastern Himalayan countries should cooperate in transboundary water resource management

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal in the Eastern Himalayas are interconnected by the common river systems of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna (GBM). The GBM basin is home to approximately 700 million people, comprising over 10% of the world's population. The economy and environment of the region depend on water, but while the need for water is increasing, poor management and climate-related effects are making water supplies erratic. Upstream–downstream interdependencies necessitate developing a shared river system in an integrated manner through collaboration of the riparian countries. This paper examines the opportunities for, and potential benefits of, regional cooperation in water resource management. It suggests that the benefits can increase considerably when a regional (river basin) perspective is adopted that promotes optimum use of water resources for consumptive and non-consumptive use. Regional cooperation can bring additional economic, environmental, social, and political benefits through multi-purpose river projects, which help by storing monsoon water, mitigating the effects of floods and droughts, augmenting dry season river flows, expanding irrigation and navigation facilities, generating hydropower, and enhancing energy and environmental security. A broader framework to facilitate regional cooperation in transboundary rivers in the Eastern Himalayan region is suggested.

Uma Abordagem da Teoria do Complexo de Segurança sobre as águas transfronteiriças do Rio Jordão / An approach of the Security Complex Theory applied to the transboundary waters of the Jordan River

The aim of this study is to address the characteristics of the security complex in the environmental sector concerning the transboundary waters in the Jordan River basin in the Middle East. To do so, the interests that guide the security relations between the states involved in managing the water resources in this river basin are identified, which are marked by border conflicts, latent ethnic interests and ideological alignments with historical links. This context, according to Buzan (2009), demonstrates the nature of insecurity with different power forces, in that the states are part of a regional security sub-system that can be seen in terms of patterns of friendship and animosity confined to a particular geographical area, to wit, the sharing of transboundary waters from the Jordan river and interest in controlling or sharing these water resources. Keywords : Security Complex; Management of Transboundary Water Resources; Jordan River Basin Received on November 2, 2012 / Accepted on November 30, 2012

Thresholds of hydrologic flow regime of a river and investigation of climate change impact—the case of the Lower Brahmaputra river Basin

The sustainability of social-ecological systems depends on river flows being maintained within a range to which those systems are adapted. In order to determine the extent of this natural range of variation, we assess ecological flow thresholds and the occurrence of potentially damaging flood events to society in the context of the Lower Brahmaputra river basin. The ecological flow threshold was calculated using twenty-two ‘Range of Variability (RVA)’ parameters, considering the range between ± 1 standard deviation from the mean of the natural flow. Damaging flood events were calculated using flood frequency analysis of Annual Maxima series and using the flood classification of Bangladesh. The climate change impacts on future river flow were calculated by using a weighted ensemble analysis of twelve global circulation models (GCMs) outputs driving a large-scale hydrologic model. The simulated climate change induced altered flow regime of the Lower Brahmaputra River Basin was then investigated and compared with the calculated threshold flows. The results demonstrate that various parameters including the monthly mean of low flow (January, February and March) and high flow (June, July and August) periods, the 7-day average minimum flow, and the yearly maximum flow will exceed the threshold conditions by 1956–1995 under the business-as-usual A1B and A2 future scenarios. The results have a number of policy level implications for government agencies of the Lower Brahmaputra River Basin, specifically for Bangladesh. The calculated thresholds may be used as a good basis for negotiations with other riparian countries of the basin. The methodological approach presented in this study can be applied to other river basins and provide a useful basis for transboundary water resources management.

The UN Watercourses Convention: the éminence grise behind cooperation on transboundary water resources

The indisputable accomplishment of the UN Watercourses Convention (UNWC) is the promotion of general principles of international water law at the universal level. For states sharing freshwater resources, cooperation is indispensable for achieving equitable and reasonable utilization, preventing significant harm and protecting shared ecosystems. The UNWC highlights this importance through the comprehensive codification of cooperation obligations and explicit recognition of the duty to cooperate as one of the general principles of international water law. This article traces the genesis of this recognition and highlights the convention's invaluable contribution in promoting international cooperation in the management of transboundary water resources.

Lessons learned in coastal habitat and land-based pollution management in the South China Sea

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Global Environment Facility (GEF) project entitled “Reversing Environmental Degradation Trends in the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand” developed and operated a regional network of 23 coastal habitat demonstration sites and land-based pollution pilot activities from 2002 to 2008. This network generated examples of best practice in coastal habitat and land-based pollution management that were documented, shared regionally, and used to inform the development of National Action Plans and the Strategic Action Programme for the South China Sea. Examples of these best practices include: strengthened cross-sectoral coordination and management; involvement of stakeholders in development of fisheries refugia; involvement of the private sector in coastal management; building capacity of local government and communities for law enforcement; changes in awareness and habits by local communities and industry participation in land-based pollution prevention; integration of traditional knowledge and practices into management planning; adoption of supplementary and alternative livelihoods as tools for improved habitat and resource management; promotion of sustainable tourism in coastal areas; rehabilitation of habitats and sustainable aquaculture practices; and bilateral cooperation for transboundary water resource management. Each of these best practices are reviewed and discussed from the perspectives of lessons learned and opportunities for their replication and scaling-up. The role of the network of demonstration sites in integrating local governments and communities within national and regional frameworks and in generating bilateral co-operation for natural resource and environmental management in the South China Sea marine basin is highlighted as a key innovation in transboundary water resource management that has potential for future application both in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

Management of Trans-boundary Water Resources: Comparing Russian and American Experiences

Management of Trans-boundary Water Resources: Comparing Russian and American Experiences

International river basin organizations: variation, options and insights

Permanent international river basin organizations (IRBOs) come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from those which are mainly facilitative in nature to those empowered to act on their own. Although differences in IRBO types may have important impacts on transboundary water resources management, systematic analysis of variation in their structure and responsibilities is scant. This paper synthesizes and applies a typology to determine the structural composition, abundance, spatial distribution, scale and in-basin configurations of the different forms of IRBOs. The results provide a set of options for future IRBOs, and serve to ground-truth and nuance theoretical divisions between different types of organizations in transboundary basins.

Principles of Transboundary Water Resources Management and Water-related Agreements in Central Asia: An Analysis

This paper analyzes the use of transboundary water resources management principles in two key regional water-related agreements in Central Asia: the Agreement on Cooperation in Joint Management, Use and Protection of Interstate Sources of Water Resources (1992) and the Statute of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (2008). These agreements incorporate several internationally recognized transboundary water resources management principles, though there are also some weaknesses. The presence of such principles in these regional agreements offers plenty of hope for the promotion of sustainable water resources management in Central Asia.

TENSÕES E CONFLITOS NA GOVERNANÇA DOS RECURSOS HÍDRICOS AMAZÔNICOS TRANSFRONTEIRIÇOS

This work aims to analyze the social conflicts and tensions involved in the governance of Amazon transboundary water resources, and studies two Amazon regions, the MAP region (in the border of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia) and the Napo river basin (in the border of Ecuador and Peru). In this regions are been implemented pilot projects of integrated management of transboundary water resources, that are part of a wider project to manage transboundary water resources in the Amazon basin as a whole. Therefore, the analysis of this two pilot projects initiatives to manage the transboundary water resources in the Amazon basin is based on bibliographical and documental research, and in data collected from the field.

A Water Resources Planning Tool for the Jordan River Basin

The Jordan River basin is subject to extreme and increasing water scarcity. Management of transboundary water resources in the basin is closely intertwined with political conflicts in the region. We have jointly developed with stakeholders and experts from the riparian countries, a new dynamic consensus database and—supported by hydro-climatological model simulations and participatory scenario exercises in the GLOWA (Global Change and the Hydrological Cycle) Jordan River project—a basin-wide Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) tool, which will allow testing of various unilateral and multilateral adaptation options under climate and socio-economic change. We present its validation and initial (climate and socio-economic) scenario analyses with this budget and allocation tool, and invite further adaptation and application of the tool for specific Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) problems.